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THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 
AND  HIS  TIME 


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THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 
AND    HIS   TIME 

SHOWN   IN    HIS  OWN   LETTERS 


BY 

JOSEPH  BUCKLIN  BISHOP 

EDITOR   OP    "THEODORE   ROOSEVELT^    LETTERS   TO   HIS   CHILDREN' 
AUTHOR   OF  "THE    PANAMA    GATEWAY,"  ETC. 


WITH    ILLUSTRATIONS 


VOL.  I. 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SON'S 

1920 


Copyright,  19 19,  1920,  by 
charles  scribner's  sons 

Published  September  1920 


THE  SCRIBNER  PRESS 


TO 

HIS  FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN 


424528 


INTRODUCTION 

Five  years  or  more  before  his  death  Theodore  Roose- 
velt said  he  wished  me  to  write  the  history  of  the  period 
which  covered  his  public  career.  His  reason  was  that  I 
had  been  in  his  close  confidence  during  the  greater  part 
of  that  period  and  knew  the  inside  of  every  movement 
nearly  as  well  as  he  knew  it  himself.  We  talked  often  on 
the  subject  and  in  the  early  spring  of  1918  the  project 
took  definite  form.  /^He  turned  over  to  me  for  exclusive 
use  all  his  personal  and  official  correspondence  together 
with  other  material  relating  to  his  public  career  from  the 
time  he  was  elected  to  the  New  York  Legislature  in  Novem- 
ber, 1881,  till  his  life  ended. 

I  began  work  at  once,  and  at  the  time  of  his  death  I  had 
completed  the  first  draft  of  the  story  of  his  public  life 
down  to  the  year  1905,  and  had  received  his  approval  of  it. 
At  different  stages  of  the  work  I  went  over  with  him  what 
I  had  written  and  had  the  inestimable  advantage  of  his 
suggestions,  obtaining  from  him  incidents  and  anecdotes 
which  added  immeasurably  to  the  interest  and  historical 
value  of  the  narrative,  making  it  virtually  his  own.  Be- 
tween us  we  evolved  a  general  plan  for  the  history,  which 
was  to  let  the  story  of  his  career  be  told,  as  far  as  possible, 
in  his  own  letters,  utterances  and  acts. 

This  was  an  arduous  but  not  a  difficult  task  to  perform. 
It  was  arduous  because  the  material  was  virtually  inex- 
haustible, but  it  was  not  difficult  because  of  the  quality 
of  Roosevelt's  letters.  One  of  his  private  secretaries  has 
estimated  that  during  his  public  career  he  wrote  150,000 
letters.    Copies  of  these  have  been  preserved.    With  them 

vii   ' 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

are  the  original  letters  of  the  many  correspondents  that  he 
had  in  all  parts  of  the  world — authors,  poets,  historians, 
artists,  explorers,  naturalists,  statesmen,  prime  ministers, 
kings,  emperors.  He  not  only  touched  life  at  all  points, 
but  on  its  intellectual  side  touched  the  highest  points  in 
every  land.  Not  only  is  the  correspondence  limitless  in 
its  range,  but  from  beginning  to  end  it  is  Roosevelt  himself 
and  hence  unlike  the  correspondence  of  any  other  person. 
Emerson,  in  his  observations  upon  great  men,  says  that 
"He  is  great  who  never  reminds  us  of  others.''  No  man 
ever  met  this  test  more  fully  than  Theodore  Roosevelt. 
Nature  has  made  many  millions  of  men  but  she  has  made 
only  one  Theodore  Roosevelt.  From  the  beginning  to 
the  end  of  his  life  he  was  himself  and  was  unlike  any  one 
else.  It  was  this  clearly  defined  personality,  at  once  unique 
and  commanding,  which  concentrated  upon  him  the  atten- 
tion of  the  world  and  made  his  name  familiar  in  all  civilized 
lands.  Fame  of  this  phenomenal  sort  is  given  only  to  a 
dominating  personality.  Its  bestowal  is  to  be  explained 
only  by  an  examination  of  the  man  as  revealed  in  his  words 
and  acts.  Roosevelt's  letters  not  merely  reflect  his  per- 
sonality, they  reveal  it  with  all  the  fulness  of  a  frank 
and  truthful  man  talking  to  tried  and  trusted  friends.  His 
letters  are  not  merely  like  his  talk,  they  are  his  talk — frank 
and  free,  with  rays  of  irrepressible  and  always  joyous 
humor  playing  about  it,  and  with  deft  and  sure  thrusts  at 
the  foibles,  vanities,  perversities,  and  weaknesses  of  man- 
kind. Few  men  have  had  a  keener  insight  into  human  mo- 
tives or  could  detect  more  quickly  the  real  nature  of  them. 
When  he  sat  down  to  write  or  to  dictate  a  letter  to  a  con- 
genial friend,  he  did  not  compose,  he  talked.  Whatever 
was  uppermost  in  his  mind  at  the  time  came  out  without 
restraint  or  reservation.  As  he  wrote  most  freely  in  mo- 
ments of  greatest  stress,  at  the  height  of  crises  created  by 
himself  in  his  struggle  for  the  triumph  of  causes  dear 
to  his  heart,  his  letters  give  us  a  veritable  "inside  history" 
of  his  time.     They  push  aside  the  screen  that  hides  the 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

wires  which  control  great  events  and  we  see  them  operat- 
ing before  our  eyes.  We  see,  in  very  truth,  history  in  the 
making,  shown  and  explained  to  us  by  the  man  who  himself 
is  making  it. 

We  get  also  a  complete  self -revelation  of  the  man,  of  the 
motives,  desires,  and  principles  which  guided  his  life.  It  is 
this  quality  of  self -revelation,  more  than  any  other  per- 
haps, which  makes  his  letters  so  admirable  a  vehicle  for 
telling  the  story  of  his  career.  Many  writers  have  sought 
to  depict  the  man  Eoosevelt,  and  many  others  will  repeat 
the  effort,  but  none  has,  and  none  can,  depict  him  as  he 
really  was  with  that  vivid  clearness  in  which  he  stands  self- 
revealed  in  his  letters.  All  sides  of  this  many-sided  man 
are  disclosed  there — the  intellectual,  which  covered  all  fields 
of  human  knowledge,  ancient  and  modern;  the  political, 
which  shows  him  to  have  been  a  sagacious  statesman  of  the 
first  rank  rather  than  a  politician,  for  as  a  politician  he 
repeatedly  broke  the  fundamental  rules  of  the  game;  the 
executive  and  administrator  first  of  a  great  State  and  then 
of  a  great  nation,  whose  motto  was  action,  action  and  still 
more  action,  and  who  accomplished  great  and  supposedly 
impossible  tasks  by  the  driving  force  of  his  character ;  the 
diplomatist  and  peacemaker,  a  role  which  he  played  with 
greater  success  than  any  other  man  of  his  time ;  and  finally, 
the  inspiring  and  uplifting  leader  of  his  countrymen,  the 
intense,  vigilant,  militant,  uncompromising  patriot,  eager 
to  serve  the  nation  in  peace  or  in  war,  who  throughout  his 
life  was  first  and  always  an  American. 

It  is  the  purpose  of  the  present  study  of  the  man  and  his 
time  to  let  his  words  and  acts  tell  the  story  of  his  career  and 
also  of  the  epoch  which  it  constitutes  in  American  history, 
an  epoch  in  which  he  was  the  leading  and  molding  figure. 
As  the  narrative  concerns  itself  chiefly  with  his  public 
career,  it  passes  briefly  over  his  ancestry,  childhood  and 
youth,  a  full  account  of  which  he  has  given  in  his  i  Auto- 
biography, '  and  begins  in  detail  with  his  entry  into  politi- 
cal life. 


x  INTRODUCTION 

While  in  a  few  instances,  in  order  to  maintain  the  con- 
tinuity of  the  narrative,  the  present  record  overlaps  the 
'  Autobiography/  it  really  supplements  and  completes  it, 
and  the  two  works  together  constitute  authentically  the  Life 
and  Letters  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  as  designed  by  himself. 

J.  B.  B. 

September,  1920. 


CONTENTS 
VOL.  I. 

PAGE 

Introduction 

CHAPTER 

I.    Ancestry,  Childhood  and  Youth      ....  1 

II.    Legislature — First  Term 6 

III.  Legislature — Second  Term 17 

IV.  Legislature — Third  Term 24 

V.    First  Appearance  in  National  Politics.    Mr. 

Blaine's  Candidacy 33 

VI.    Literary  Labors — Tilt  with  Jefferson  Davis 

— Candidate  for  Mayor 39 

VII.    Civil  Service  Commissioner 43 

VIII.    Police  Commissioner 58 

IX.    Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy  ....  70 

-^  X.    The  War  with  Spain 92 

XI.    Governor  of  New  York — First  Year  ...  109 

XII.    Governor  of  New  York — Second  Year     .     .  128 

VxinJ    Nominated  and  Elected  Vice  President  .      .  134 

_f~XTV.    President — Early  Declarations  of  Policy    .  148 

XV.    The  Booker  Washington  Incident        .     .     .  165 

XVI.    Controversies  with  General  Miles     ...  171 

XVIIr— -The  Northern  Securities  Suit 182 

•XVIII.    Incidents  of  a  Busy  Year 188 

XIX.    Coal  Strike  Settlement 198 

-w-XX.    The  Kaiser  and  Venezuela 221 

*XXI.    Popular  Approval — Views  on  Various  Subjects  230 
XXII.    For  President  in  1904 — Futile  Opposition — 

His  Own  Attitude 243 

"SCXIII.    Notable  Sentiments  in  Speeches  and  Letters — 

Alaska  Boundary — Wide  Range  of  Reading  256 
xi 


Xll 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

^  XXIV. 

^  XXV. 

XXVI. 

XXVII. 

XXVIII. 
^^XIX. 

^  XXX. 

—  XXXI. 

—  XXXII. 
^XXXIII. 


XXXIV. 


XXXV. 

-XXXVI. 

-*XXXVII. 


PAGE 

Securing  the  Panama  Canal 270 

Securing  the  Panama  Canal — Concluded  .  291 

National  Convention  and  Campaign  of  1904  .  312 
Attitude   toward   Campaign   Contributions — 

Judge  Parker's  Charges 328 

Visit  of  John  Morley  at  the  White  House  337 
Illuminating   Letters   on   Various   Subjects, 

Including  Questions  of  Policy      ....  343  \ 

Inaugurated  President — Death  of  John  Hay  362 

Russo-Japanese  Peace  Conference  ....  374  V 

Russo-Japanese  Peace  Conference — Concluded  401  V' 
Messages  to  Congress — Paul  Morton  Case — 
Senate  on  Santo  Domingo  and  Arbitration 

Treaties 425^' 

Rebukes  to  Riotous  Strikers  and  Lynchers — 
Dealings  with  Senators — Letters  on  Vari- 
ous Subjects 438 

Builder  of  the  Panama  Canal     .      .      .      .      .  449 

Secret  History  of  the  Algeciras  Convention  467  - 
Secret  History  of  the  Algeciras  Convention 

— Concluded 488 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

VOL.  I. 

Theodore  Roosevelt,  1908 Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

Theodore  Roosevelt,  New  York  Legislature,  1881       ...  10 

Theodore  Roosevelt,  Police  Commissioner,  1895      ....  60 

Theodore  Roosevelt,  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  1897     .  72 

Theodore  Roosevelt,  Governor,  1899 112 

Inauguration  Medal,  1905,  and  Coinage  designs,  by  Augustus 
Saint-Gaudens,  1906 360 

The  completed  Panama  Canal,  1919 450 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 
AND  HIS  TIME 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 
AND  HIS  TIME 

CHAPTEE  I 
ANCESTEY,  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH 

Theodore  Roosevelt,  the  second  of  that  name,  was  born 
in  New  York  City  on  October  27,  1858.  His  ancestors  on 
the  paternal  side  were  of  Holland  stock,  and  on  the 
maternal  side  were  Scotch,  Irish,  Huguenot  and  English 
descent.  The  first  Roosevelt  to  come  to  America  was  Klaes 
Martensen  van  Roosevelt,  who  reached  New  Amsterdam 
about  1644,  and  from  that  time  for  seven  generations,  from 
father  to  son,  every  one  of  his  descendants  was  born  in 
New  York  City.  They  were  mainly  merchants  who  held 
prominent  positions  in  the  affairs  of  the  city  and  in  its 
commercial  and  social  life,  before,  during  and  after  the 
Revolutionary  War. 

The  ancestors  of  the  grandmother  of  the  second  Theo- 
dore came  to  Pennsylvania  with  William  Penn,  those  of  his 
mother  came  to  Georgia  from  Scotland,  her  grandfather 
being  the  first  Revolutionary  President  of  Georgia.  Some 
of  the  Roosevelt  ancestors  on  both  sides  served  respect- 
ably, but  without  distinction,  in  the  army  during  the  Revo- 
lution, and  others  rendered  similar  service  in  the  Conti- 
nental Congress  and  in  local  legislatures.  Those  in  the 
South  were  for  the  most  part  planters.  Two  brothers  of 
Roosevelt's  mother  served  in  the  Confederate  navy  during 
the  Civil  War,  one  as  admiral,  who  was  the  builder  of  the 
famous  Confederate  war  sloop  Alabama,  and  the  other  as 
midshipman  on  the  same  vessel. 

These  facts  about  Roosevelt's  ancestry  are  taken  from  his 
'Autobiography'    (Charles   Scribner's   Sons,   1920)  which 

1 


2       :\;  ^®0[tK)RE,aO9SJ3VELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

contains  much  interesting  information  about  his  forbears, 
with  affectionate  tributes  to  those  immediately  preceding 
him,  and  charming  reminiscences  of  his  childhood.  His 
letters  supply  some  additional  material  which  is  well  worth 
quoting.  He  invariably  discouraged  efforts  to  make  him 
appear  as  an  " infant  prodigy' '  who  had  given  early  signs 
of  future  greatness.  During  his  first  term  as  President, 
Mr.  Eichard  Watson  Grilder,  then  editor  of  the  Century 
magazine,  expressed  a  desire  to  publish  a  sketch  of  his 
childhood  days  with  photographs  of  him  at  various  stages 
of  growth.  In  avowing  his  objection  to  the  project,  Boose- 
velt  wrote  to  Mr.  Gilder,  on  August  20,  1903 : 

"For  reasons  which  I  am  wholly  unable  to  explain  even 
to  myself  I  somehow  rather  shrink  from  having  a  sketch  of 
my  younger  days  prepared.  Perhaps  my  reason  for  caring 
little  for  the  sketch  of  my  younger  days  is  that  as  far  as  I 
can  remember  they  were  absolutely  commonplace.  I  was  a 
rather  sickly,  rather  timid  little  boy,  very  fond  of  desultory 
reading  and  of  natural  history,  and  not  excelling  In  any 
form  of  sport.  Owing  to  my  asthma  I  was  not  able  to  go 
to  school,  and  I  was  nervous  and  self-conscious,  so  that  as 
far  as  I  can  remember  my  belief  is  that  I  was  rather  below 
than  above  my  average  playmate  in  point  of  leadership; 
though  as  I  had  an  imaginative  temperament  this  some- 
times made  up  for  my  other  short-comings.  Altogether, 
while,  thanks  to  my  father  and  mother,  I  had  a  very  happy 
childhood  I  am  inclined  to  look  back  at  it  with  some  wonder 
that  I  should  have  come  out  of  it  as  well  as  I  have !  It  was 
not  until  after  I  was  sixteen  that  I  began  to  show  any 
prowess,  or  even  ordinary  capacity ;  up  to  that  time,  except 
making  collections  of  natural  history,  reading  a  good  deal 
in  certain  narrowly  limited  fields  and  indulging  in  the  usual 
scribbling  of  the  small  boy  who  does  not  excel  in  sport, 
I  cannot  remember  that  I  did  anything  that  even  lifted  me 
up  to  the  average.' ' 

His  love  for  his  father,  whom  he  spoke  of  always  as  the 
best  man  he  had  ever  known,  amounted  to  adoration.  Writ- 


ANCESTRY,  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH       3 

ing  to  Edward  S.  Martin,  on  November  26,  1900,  he  said: 
"I  was  fortunate  enough  in  having  a  father  whom  I  have 
always  been  able  to  regard  as  an  ideal  man.  It  sounds  a 
little  like  cant  to  say  what  I  am  going  to  say,  but  he  really 
did  combine  the  strength  and  courage  and  will  and  energy 
of  the  strongest  man  with  the  tenderness,  cleanness  and 
purity  of  a  woman.  I  was  a  sickly  and  timid  boy.  He  not 
only  took  great  and  untiring  care  of  me — some  of  my 
earliest  remembrances  are  of  nights  when  he  would  walk 
up  and  down  with  me  for  an  hour  at  a  time  in  his  arms 
when  I  was  a  wretched  mite  suffering  acutely  with  asthma — 
but  he  also  most  wisely  refused  to  coddle  me,  and  made  me 
feel  that  I  must  force  myself  to  hold  my  own  with  other 
boys  and  prepare  to  do  the  rough  work  of  the  world.  I  can- 
not say  that  he  ever  put  it  into  words,  but  he  certainly  gave 
me  the  feeling  that  I  was  always  to  be  both  decent  and 
manly,  and  that  if  I  were  manly  nobody  would  laugh  at  my 
being  decent.  In  all  my  childhood  he  never  laid  hand  on 
me  but  once,  but  I  always  knew  perfectly  well  that  in  case 
it  became  necessary  he  would  not  have  the  slightest  hesi- 
tancy in  doing  so  again,  and  alike  from  my  love  and  respect, 
and  in  a  certain  sense,  my  fear  of  him,  I  would  have  hated 
and  dreaded  beyond  measure  to  have  him  know  that  I  had 
been  guilty  of  a  lie,  or  of  cruelty,  or  of  bullying,  or  of 
uncleanness  or  of  cowardice.  Gradually  I  grew  to  have 
the  feeling  on  my  own  account,  and  not  merely  on  his. 

"  There  were  many  things  I  tried  to  do  because  he  did 
them,  which  I  found  afterwards  were  not  in  my  line.  For 
instance,  I  taught  Sunday  school  all  through  college,  but 
afterwards  gave  it  up,  just  as  on  experiment  I  could  not 
do  the  charitable  work  which  he  had  done.  In  doing  my 
Sunday  school  work  I  was  very  much  struck  by  the  fact 
that  the  other  men  who  did  it  only  possessed  one  side  of 
his  character.  My  ordinary  companions  in  college  would, 
I  think,  have  had  a  tendency  to  look  down  upon  me  for 
doing  Sunday  school  work  if  I  had  not  also  been  a  corking 
boxer,  a  good  runner,  and  a  genial  member  of  the  Porcel- 
lian  Club.    I  went  in  for  boxing  and  wrestling  a  good  deal, 


4  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

and  I  really  think  that  while  this  was  partly  because  I  liked 
them  as  sports,  it  was  even  more  because  I  intended  to  be 
a  middling  decent  fellow,  and  I  did  not  intend  that  any  one 
should  laugh  at  me  with  impunity  because  I  was  decent. 
It  is  exactly  the  same  thing  with  history.  In  most  coun- 
tries the  Bourgeoisie — the  moral,  respectable,  commercial, 
middle  class — are  looked  upon  with  a  certain  contempt 
which  is  justified  by  their  timidity  /and;  unwarlikeness. 
But  the  minute  a  middle  class  produces  men  like  Hawkins 
and  Frobisher  on  the  seas,  or  men  such  as  the  average 
Union  soldier  in  the  Civil  War,  it  acquires  the  hearty 
respect  of  others  which  it  merits." 

It  is  easy  to  trace  in  this  tribute  of  supreme  filial  devo- 
tion the  influences  which  molded  the  son's  character  and 
laid  firm  and  sure  the  strong  foundations  upon  which  he 
built  his  subsequent  career,  winning  world-wide  fame  and 
honor  and  the  enduring  faith  and  affection  of  his  country- 
men. 

He  was,  as  he  said  in  his  letter,  a  sickly  and  timid  boy. 
Cordially  supported  and  encouraged  by  his  father,  he  began 
quite  early  to  improve  his  physical  condition  through  regu- 
lar gymnastic  exercises,  including  boxing  lessons.  When 
he  was  ten  years  old  he  was  taken  on  a  trip  to  Europe  which 
he  "thoroughly  hated' '  and  from  which  he  gained  nothing, 
and  a  second  one  four  years  later  which  he  "enjoyed  thor- 
oughly" and  profited  by.  On  his  return  from  this  second 
trip  he  began  serious  study  under  a  private  tutor  (Arthur 
Cutler,  later  founder  of  the  Cutler  School  in  New  York)  in 
preparation  for  college,  and  in  the  fall  of  187&,  having  by 
his  systematic  exercise  brought  himself  into  excellent  physi- 
cal condition,  he  entered  Harvard  University. 

"I  thoroughly  enjoyed  Harvard,' '  he  says  in  his  ' Auto- 
biography, ' i  i  and  I  am  sure  it  did  me  good,  but  only  in  the 
general  effect,  for  there  was  very  little  in  my  actual  studies 
which  helped  me  in  after  life."  Before  he  left  Harvard  in 
1880  he  had  begun  the  writing  of  his  ' l  History  of  the  Naval 
War  of  1812,"  which  he  completed  in  the  following  year  and 
published  in  1882.    Although  he  said  later  of  the  opening 


ANCESTRY,  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH       5 

chapters  that  they  "were  so  dry  that  they  would  have  made 
a  dictionary  seem  light  reading  by  comparison, ' '  the  book 
had  such  genuine  historical  merit  that  it  has  remained  till 
this  day  as  the  standard  work  on  the  subject. 

On  October  27,  1880,  he  married  Alice  Hathaway  Lee, 
daughter  of  George  Cabot  Lee.  She  died  on  February  14, 
1884,  leaving  one  child,  Alice,  who  became  the  wife  of 
Nicholas  Longworth  on  February  17,  1906.  On  December 
2,  1886,  he  married  in  London  Edith  Kermit  Carow, 
daughter  of  Charles  Carow  of  New  York.  By  this  mar- 
riage there  were  five  children,  Theodore,  Kermit,  Archi- 
bald, Quentin  and  Ethel. 


CHAPTER  II 

LEGISLATURE— FIRST  TERM 

Theodoee  Roosevelt's  public  career  began  in  January, 
1882,  when  at  the  age  of  23  he  entered  the  New  York  Legis- 
lature as  a  member  of  its  lower  house.  He  had  been  grad- 
uated from  Harvard  in  1880  and  had  spent  the  following 
year  in  the  study  of  law.  His  inclination  toward  the  legal 
profession  was  not  strengthened  by  his  studies  for  it  seemed 
to  him  that  some  of  the  teachings  of  the  law  books  and  of 
the  class-room  were  against  rather  than  in  favor  of  the 
attainment  of  justice.  Then,  too,  the  standards  set  by  many 
successful  lawyers  who  were  in  the  service  of  great  cor- 
porations, were  incompatible  with  the  idealism  which  he, 
in  common  with  other  high-minded  men,  entertained.  It 
was  a  period,  not  yet  closed,  in  which  many  of  the  ablest 
and  most  eminent  members  of  the  bar  devoted  their  talents, 
not  so  much  to  the  strict  observance  of  the  law,  as  to  find- 
ing ways  by  which  their  clients  could  violate  the  spirit  if 
not  the  letter  of  the  law  and  escape  its  penalties.  The 
effect  of  studies  under  these  conditions  made  an  impres- 
sion upon  young  Roosevelt's  mind  which  was  never  wholly 
effaced,  but  which  deepened  and  strengthened  as  time  went 
on  and  found  expression  later  in  his  action  as  President  in 
the  direction  of  regulating  and  controlling  the  conduct  of 
great  corporations. 

While  studying  law  he  began  to  take  an  active  interest 
in  politics  and  his  comfortable  financial  condition  enabled 
him  to  give  time  and  attention  to  political  matters  which 
he  would  otherwise  have  been  obliged  to  concentrate  upon 
earning  a  livelihood.  He  had  been  left  by  his  father  suf- 
ficient means  to  permit  him  to  make  the  earning  of  addi- 
tional money  a  secondary  matter.    He  said  in  after  life  that 

6 


LEGISLATURE— FIRST  TERM  7 

it  was  the  possession  of  this  inheritance  which  enabled  him 
to  accept  offices  at  a  salary  inadequate  for  the  support  of 
himself  and  his  family  and  through  which  he  secured 
advancement  in  public  life.  Instead  of  making  his  inheri- 
tance the  excuse  for  an  idle  and  purposeless  life,  as  many 
another  man  in  like  situation  has  done,  he  used  it  as  an  aid 
to  a  life  of  action  and  public  usefulness. 

In  1880,  the  machinery  of  party  organization  in  New 
York  City  was  entirely  in  the  hands  of  men  who  made 
politics  a  profession  by  means  of  which  they  earned  a  live- 
lihood. As  the  Eepublican  party  was  in  a  hopeless  minor- 
ity in  the  city,  the  men  in  control  of  its  organization  used 
it  mainly  as  a  basis  for  combinations  or  " deals' '  with 
Tammany  Hall,  receiving  in  return  minor  offices  from  the 
Tammany  authorities  and  various  other  favors.  The 
Eepublican  district  organizations  formed  social  and  politi- 
cal clubs  and  these  selected  all  the  candidates  for  office,  who 
were  usually  men  who  could  be  depended  upon  to  "obey 
orders,"  that  is,  to  act  as  the  party  bosses  commanded.  It 
was  somewhat  difficult  for  a  man  of  young  Eoosevelt's  type 
to  become  a  member  of  a  district  club,  as  candidates  had  to 
be  regularly  proposed  and  elected,  as  in  any  other  club. 

When  Eoosevelt  declared  his  intention  of  becoming  a 
member  of  the  club  in  his  district,  which  was  known  as  the 
" silk-stocking' '  district  of  the  city  because  of  the  wealth 
and  social  eminence  of  a  large  proportion  of  its  voting 
population,  his  friends  ridiculed  him,  saying  that  the  men 
in  control  of  city  politics  were  not  gentlemen,  but  saloon- 
keepers, street-car  conductors  and  the  like,  and  that  he 
would  not  only  be  unable  to  exert  any  influence  but  would 
be  subjected  to  unpleasantness  and  even  brutality.  His 
reply  was  characteristic  of  the  man.  ' 1 1  answered, ' '  he  says 
in  his  ' Autobiography, '  "that  if  this  were  so  it  merely 
meant  that  the  people  I  knew  did  not  belong  to  the  govern- 
ing class,  and  that  the  other  people  did — and  that  I 
intended  to  be  one  of  the  governing  class;  that  if  they 
proved  too  hard-bit  for  me  I  supposed  I  would  have-  to 
quit,  but  I  certainly  would  not  quit  until  I  had  made  the 


8  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

effort  and  found  out  whether  I  really  was  too  weak  to  hold 
my  own  in  the  rough  and  tumble." 

He  was  admitted  to  membership  and  after  a  year's 
association  had  so  held  his  own  as  to  become  on  good  terms 
with  enough  of  his  fellow  members  to  win  their  nomination 
for  member  of  the  Assembly,  or  lower  branch  of  the  Legis- 
lature, in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  had  been  an  open  oppo- 
nent of  their  machine  methods  and  had  fought  a  losing 
fight  with  them  on  more  than  one  occasion.  There  was  no 
doubt  in  their  minds  about  his  anti-machine  sentiments  or 
about  his  inflexible  determination  to  uphold  them  at  any 
and  all  times.  In  fact,  they  obtained  fresh  light  on  the 
subject  as  soon  as  he  was  nominated.  The  Assembly  dis- 
trict included  sections  of  Fifth  and  Sixth  Avenues,  and  the 
party  leaders  thought  at  first  they  would  take  him  on  a 
personal  canvass  through  the  liquor  saloons  along  Sixth 
Avenue.  The  canvass  ended  with  the  first  saloon.  The 
candidate  was  introduced  with  proper  solemnity  to  the 
proprietor,  who  was  an  important  political  personage,  and 
who  began  to  catechize  him  as  a  suppliant  for  favor.  When 
he  said  that  he  expected  Koosevelt  as  member  to  treat  the 
liquor  interests  fairly,  he  got  a  rather  sharp  reply  that  all 
interests  would  be  treated  fairly,  and  when  he  added  that 
he  regarded  existing  licenses  as  too  high  he  got  in  response 
an  assurance  that  the  candidate  did  not  consider  them  high 
enough  and  would  endeavor  to  have  them  made  higher. 
The  interview  at  this  point  assumed  so  stormy  an  aspect 
that  the  candidate  was  withdrawn  by  his  backers  on  a  plea 
of  pressing  engagements  elsewhere,  and  no  other  saloons 
were  visited,  it  being  explained  to  him  that  he  would  better 
confine  his  energies  to  his  friends  in  Fifth  Avenue  and 
leave  to  others  the  burdens  of  the  canvass  in  Sixth  Avenue. 
These  details  of  the  first  steps  of  Roosevelt  in  political 
life  are  given  as  throwing  important  light  upon  his  subse- 
quent career,  for  they  disclose  the  same  characteristics  that 
he  displayed  in  all  its  later  stages. 

Mle  was  successful  in  the  election,  and  in  January,  1882, 
took  his  seat  in  the  Legislature  a  new  man  in  politics, 


LEGISLATURE— FIRST  TERM  9 

totally  unknown  outside  the  limits  of  the  district  that  he 
represented.  He  had  at  the  time  no  intention  or  expecta- 
tion of  abandoning  the  profession  of  law  for  a  political 
career.  He  wrote  immediately  after  his  election,  to  a  class- 
mate, Charles  G.  Washburn  of  Worcester,  Mass.,  that  find- 
ing it  would  not  interfere  with  his  law  studies  he  had 
accepted  the  nomination,  "but  don't,"  he  added,  "think 
I  am  going  to  go  into  politics  after  this  year,  for  I  am  not." 

Almost  from  the  moment  of  his  entrance  he  took  a  com- 
manding position  among  his  associates.  The  Assembly 
was  nearly  evenly  divided  between  Republicans  and  Demo- 
crats, the  latter  having  a  bare  majority  of  one  vote.  The 
Democrats  themselves  were  divided  between  Tammany  and 
anti-Tammany  members.  The  half  dozen  Tammany  mem- 
bers sought  to  dictate  the  nomination  for  Speaker  by  putting 
up  a  candidate  of  their  own,  thus  depriving  the  regularly 
nominated  Democratic  candidate  of  a  majority.  There  was 
thus  provided  an  ideal  situation  for  a  "deal"  between  the 
machine  Eepublican  members  and  the  handful  of  Tammany 
members  in  favor  of  the  nomination  of  a  Speaker  who 
would  divide  the  patronage  of  the  Assembly  between  his 
supporters.  "Deals"  of  this  character  had  been  a  well- 
established  custom  for  many  years,  whenever  the  oppor- 
tunity arose,  and  one  was  confidently  anticipated  at  this 
time.  In  fact,  the  first  steps  of  it  had  been  taken,  when  the 
new  and  unknown  member  from  New  York  arose  to  explain 
his  vote  while  the  deadlock  was  in  progress.  He  said  that 
the  Democrats  were  in  the  majority  and  should  be  per- 
mitted to  organize  the  Assembly.  No  harm  was  being  done 
by  the  delay,  and  he  was  convinced  after  talking  with  gentle- 
men among  his  constituents  who  had  large  commercial  in- 
terests that  they  would  be  relieved  rather  than  annoyed  by 
the  absence  of  legislation.  The  Democrats  were  responsible 
for  the  delay  and  they  would  receive  whatever  blame  the 
people  might  administer  for  it.  As  for  the  Republicans, 
they  were  opposed  to  any  combination  with  the  Democrats. 

The  effect  of  this  unexpected  speech  was  instantaneous 
and,  so  far  as  the  proposed  "deal"  was  concerned,  deadly. 


10  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

As  it  was  the  first  utterance  of  Eoosevelt  as  a  holder  of 
public  office  it  is  interesting  to  record  the  comments  that 
were  made  on  it  by  the  newspapers  at  the  time.  One  said : 
"  Assemblyman  Eoosevelt  made  a  very  favorable  impres- 
sion by  his  first  speech."  Another:  "His  sensible  and 
well-delivered  remarks  brought  him  many  hearty  congratu- 
lations from  the  older  members.' '  An  Albany  correspond- 
ent of  another:  "The  next  orator  was  Mr.  Theodore 
Eoosevelt  of  the  twenty-first,  a  Eepublican.  This  young 
gentleman  has  been  dubbed  ' Oscar  Wilde'  by  his  admiring 
colleagues,  who  were  much  amused  by  his  elastic  move- 
ments, voluminous  laughter  and  wealth  of  mouth.  But  his 
speech  to-day  was  well-considered  and  put."  Another 
correspondent,  like  the  one  just  quoted,  writing  for  a 
Democratic  journal,  felt  moved  to  ridicule  while  bestowing 
praise:  "Young  Mr.  Eoosevelt  of  New  York,  a  blond 
young  man  with  eyeglasses,  English  side  whiskers,  and 
Dundreary  drawl  in  his  speech,  made  his  maiden  effort  as 
an  orator.  He  objected  to  talk  of  Eepublican  aid  to  the 
Democrats.  .  .  .  The  older  Eepublican  members  who 
have  been  trying  to  make  party  capital  by  representing  the 
State  as  going  to  ruin  because  the  Democrats  did  not  or- 
ganize the  Legislature,  wriggled  uneasily  in  their  seats 
when  young  Mr.  Eoosevelt  pictured  the  complacency  of  the 
people  over  the  deadlock.  There  was  no  way  to  stop  him, 
however,  and  he  got  through  without  interruption.  An 
effort  to  undo  what  he  said  to-day  will  probably  be  made 
to-morrow." 

It  was  impossible  to  undo  it  for  the  simple  reason  that 
daylight  had  been  let  into  the  scheme  by  "Young  Mr. 
Eoosevelt" — he  was  to  be  accused  of  the  "atrocious  crime 
of  being  a  young  man"  for  many  years  afterwards — and 
the  "deal"  was  abandoned,  for  political  trickery  of  that 
sort  must  be  carried  on  in  secret  or  it  cannot  succeed.  The 
anti-Tammany  candidate  for  Speaker  was  elected  by  aid 
of  the  Tammany  votes  and  Eoosevelt  had  scored  his  first 
victory  over  the  united  powers  of  evil  in  politics. 

The  second  victory  followed  quickly  on  the  steps  of  the 


>  ■>       I         • 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT,  NEW  YORK  LEGISLATURE,  1881 


X, 


LEGISLATURE— FIRST  TERM  11 

first.  An  effort  was  made  to  regain  what  had  been  lost  in 
the  Speakership  contest  by  a  scheme  to  deprive  the  Speaker 
of  the  power  to  appoint  subordinate  officers  in  the  Assem- 
bly, lodging  it  in  the  hands  of  the  clerk,  who  was  a  Repub- 
lican. The  defeated  Tammany  members  had  united  with 
the  Republican  "dealers"  in  this  project.  A  Republican 
caucus  was  held  and  a  resolution  was  introduced  by  an 
expert  Republican  "dealer"  to  approve  the  plan.  Mr. 
Roosevelt,  who  had  been  joined  by  a  half-dozen  other  young 
members  who  shared  his  independent  views,  denounced  the 
plan  so  vigorously  that  it  was  defeated  by  a  nearly  unani- 
mous vote.  The  press  of  the  State  had  been  fully  aroused 
by  the  action  which  Roosevelt  had  taken  in  the  Speakership 
contest  and  its  hearty  approval  of  his  course  had  made 
Republican  members  very  timid  about  opposing  him. 

He  had  been  made  a  member  of  the  Committee  on  Cities, 
and  as  soon  as  the  Speakership  controversy  was  settled  he 
turned  his  attention  to  needed  legislation  for  the  city  of 
New  York,  bringing  in  a  bill  which  provided  for  the  elec- 
tion of  Aldermen  by  Assembly  Districts  and  the  election  of 
the  President  of  the  Board  by  the  city  at  large.  This  abol; 
ished  the  existing  method  which  included  a  system  of  minor- 
ity representation  that  had  worked  chiefly  in  the  interest 
of  i  i  deals ' '  and  the  consequent  success  of  the  most  undesir- 
able candidates,  and  assured  the  choice  of  a  President  of 
the  Board  who,  because  of  the  method  of  his  election,  would 
be  a  less  objectionable  person  than  was  possible  under  the 
old  system.  The  measure  was  fought  viciously  by  the  poli- 
ticians of  both  parties  but  was  supported  warmly  by  the 
reputable  press  of  the  city  and  was  enacted.  It  was  the 
first  step  toward  an  improvement  in  the  quality  of  the  mem- 
bership of  the  Board  01*  Aldermen,  and  was  the  basis  of 
further  steps  in  the  same  direction  in  subsequent  years. 

The  action  of  his  first  legislative  session  which  attracted 
most  widespread  attention  and  subjected  Roosevelt  to 
abuse  and  ridicule  was  his  effort  to  secure  the  impeach- 
ment of  a  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State.  The 
Justice  had  been  charged  in  the  press  with  allowing  him- 


12  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

self  to  be  used  as  an  instrument  in  their  business  by  men 
connected  with  railway  interests  in  New  York  City.  Roose- 
velt introduced  a  resolution  calling  for  an  investigation  by 
the  Judiciary  Committee  of  the  Assembly.  In  support  of 
it  he  made  a  carefully  prepared  speech,  setting  forth  in 
detail  the  charges  in  the  case.  Strong  opposition  was  at 
once  made  to  the  resolution,  led  by  one  of  the  oldest  Repub- 
lican leaders  in  the  Assembly  and  warmly  espoused  by  the 
leader  or  boss  of  Tammany  Hall.  It  was  the  old  combina- 
tion that  Roosevelt  had  fought  and  overcome  in  the  Speak- 
ership contest. 

The  press  of  the  city  and  State  was  divided  on  the  ques- 
tion, the  more  reputable  portion  favoring  investigation  and 
the  Tammany  Democratic  portion  bitterly  opposing  it  and 
assailing  Roosevelt  personally.  As,  on  the  occasion  of  his 
first  speech  in  the  Assembly,  these  press  comments  are  of 
illuminating  value,  especially  in  view  of  other  comments 
which  were  made  at  various  stages  of  his  career. 

In  reference  to  his  speech  in  presenting  the  resolution 
the  New  York  Times  said  it  was  "  A  very  concise  and  vigor- 
ous presentation  of  the  essential  facts  in  the  case,,,  and 
added : 

"Mr.  Roosevelt  has  a  most  refreshing  habit  of  calling 
men  and  things  by  their  right  names,  and  in  these  days  of 
judicial,  ecclesiastical,  and  journalistic  subserviency  to  the 
robber-barons  of  the  Street,  it  needs  some  little  courage 
in  any  public  man  to  characterize  them  and  their  acts  in 
fitting  terms.  There  is  a  splendid  career  open  for  a  young 
man  of  position,  character,  and  independence  like  Mr. 
Roosevelt  who  can  denounce  the  legalized  robbery  of  Gould 
and  his  allies  without  descending  to  the  turgid  abuse  of  the 
demagogue,  and  without  being  restrained  by  the  cowardly 
caution  of  the  politician. ' ' 

The  New  York  World  represented  the  opposite  view  and 
taking  the  side  of  Tammany  and  its  Republican  allies,  said 
on  various  occasions: 

"The  son  of  Mr.  Theodore  Roosevelt  ought  to  have 
learned,  even  at  this  early  period  of  his  life,  the  difference 


LEGISLATURE— FIRST  TERM  13 

between  a  call  for  a  legislative  committee  of  inquiry  and  a 
stump  speech. 

"Why  not  allow  Mr.  Eoosevelt  to  impeach  the  Judge  at 
once,  try  him  and  convict  him?  Why  irritate  an  estimable 
youth  into  making  a  spectacle  of  himself  to  no  purpose  V 

Concerning  the  quality  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  speech,  the 
Albany  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Sun  said :  "It  was 
delivered  with  deliberation  and  measured  emphasis,  and 
his  charges  were  made  with  a  boldness  that  was  almost 
scathing."  Another  correspondent  wrote:  "The  bold 
language  used  by  Mr.  Roosevelt  to-day  has  been  the  prin- 
cipal topic  of  conversation  among  the  members  to-night.' ' 

Every  parliamentary  trick  and  device  was  used  to  defeat 
the  resolution.  An  ex-Governor  of  the  State,  who  was  the 
oldest  Republican  member  and  an  expert  "dealer"  of  many 
years'  practice,  talked  against  time  when  the  resolution 
was  introduced  and  prevented  a  vote  being  reached.  He 
alluded  to  Roosevelt  repeatedly  as  the  "young  man  from 
New  York,"  and  in  this  and  subsequent  sessions  led  the 
opposition  on  the  floor,  upheld  invariably  by  the  Republi- 
can Speaker  in  the  chair,  who  represented  the  district  in 
which  the  accused  Judge  lived.  Among  other  efforts  to 
secure  defeat  it  was  asserted  on  the  floor  that  a  member 
of  the  Roosevelt  family  had  been  "squeezed"  in  some 
operation  by  the  elevated  railway  authorities  and  he  was 
trying  to  "get  even"  with  them  by  assailing  the  Judge. 
This  was  promptly  refuted.  Roosevelt,  undaunted  and 
undismayed,  overcame  all  obstacles,  steadily  pressing  for 
a  vote,  and  when  the  time  for  it  arrived  the  resolution  was 
adopted  by  a  vote  of  104  in  favor  to  only  6  against.  So 
strong  was  popular  sentiment  throughout  the  State  in 
favor  of  Roosevelt's  course  that  few  of  the  members  who 
had  been  opposing  it  in  private  ventured  to  do  so  openly 
when  they  were  forced  to  go  on  the  record. 

Commenting  on  this  result,  Harper's  Weekly,  then  edited 
by  George  William  Curtis,  said : 

"It  is  with  the  greatest  satisfaction  that  those  who  are 
interested  in  good  government  see  a  young  man  in  the 


14  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Legislature  who,  like  Mr.  Eoosevelt,  does  not  know  the 
meaning  of  fear,  and  to  whom  the  bluster  and  bravado  of 
party  and  political  bullies  are  as  absolutely  indifferent  as 
the  blowing  of  the  wind. ' '. 

The  investigation  resulted  in  two  reports  from  the  Judi- 
ciary Committee,  one  by  the  majority  against  impeachment 
of  the  Judge  and  one  by  a  minority  in  favor  of  impeach- 
ment. The  " Black  Horse  Cavalry,' '  as  the  forces  of  evil  in 
politics  were  called,  had  triumphed.  The  Committee  mem- 
bers whom  they  controlled  had  voted,  without  the  slightest 
regard  to  the  evidence,  against  impeachment.  Their  action 
was  fore-ordained  from  the  beginning.  Eoosevelt  made  an 
earnest  effort  to  have  the  Assembly  adopt  the  minority 
report,  but  without  success,  for  the  same  forces  were  in 
control  there.  The  majority  report  was  adopted  by  a  vote 
of  77  to  35.  This  action  was  denounced  by  the  reputable 
press  of  the  city  and  State  as  a  disgrace  to  the  Assembly 
and  a  shameless  act  of  ' '  whitewashing. ' '  Unbiased  public 
opinion  throughout  the  State  was  virtually  unanimous  in 
the  belief  that  the  evidence  presented  had  established 
beyond  question  the  guilt  of  the  Judge.  The  Assembly 
won  a  temporary  triumph,  but  a  great  moral  victory  was 
accredited  to  Eoosevelt,  who  stood  higher  than  ever  in 
public  estimation. 

Eoosevelt  further  incurred  the  bitter  enmity  of  the 
Elevated  Eailway  Company  by  opposing  and  securing  the 
failure  of  a  measure  designed  to  relieve  it  of  the  burden 
of  about  one-half  of  its  just  taxes.  A  bill  wjaicjajiad 
passed  the  Assembly  relating  to  the  taxation  of  corpora- 
tions was  surreptitiously  amended  in  the  Senate  and  passed 
by  that  body  in  such  form  as  to  fix  the  raj&jrf  taxation 
to  be  levied  upon  the  elevated  railway  corporation  at  4  per 
cent  of  gross  receipts,  instead  of  8  per  cent  as  levied  by  the 
city  authorities  on  that  and  other  corporations.  An  effort 
was  made  by  the  ' i  Black  Horse  Cavalry, ' '  assisted  by  one 
of  their  number  in  the  chair,  to  force  the  bill  through  the 
Assembly  under  "gag  law."  Eoosevelt  objected,  insisted 
upon  reading    official    protests    from  the  New  York  city 


LEGISLATURE— FIRST  TERM  15 

authorities,  showing  that  the  bill  would  deprive  the  city  of 
at  least  a  quarter  of  a  million  dollars,  and  in  explaining  his 
vote  declared:  "It  is  a  steal  pure  and  simple,  the  most 
monstrous  that  has  been  perpetrated  here  this  year.  The 
way  it  is  being  pushed  through  under  the  gag  law  shows 
the  motives  of  those  who  are  thus  acting.' '  Hp_was  nrmhlq 
to  defeat  the  bill  in  the  Assembly,  but  his  denunciation  led 
to  full  publicity  in  the  press  regarding  its  nature  and  the 
method  of  its  passage,  raising  a  storm  of  protest  through- 
out the  State,  and  leading  to  a  veto  by  the  Governor. 
Roosevelt's  opposition  was  justified  three  years  later  when, 
after  much  litigation,  the  courts  decreed  that  the  Elevated 
companies  owed  taxes  in  excess  of  $1,500,000,  as  levied  by 
the  city  authorities. 

Roosevelt's  experience  made  upon  him  what  was  shown  in 
later  years  to  be  a  lasting  impression.  "Various  men," 
he  says  in  his  ' Autobiography, '  "whom  I  had  known  so- 
cially and  had  been  taught  to  look  up  to,  prominent  business 
men  and  lawyers,  acted  in  a  way  which  not  only  astounded 
me,  but  which  I  was  quite  unable  to  reconcile  with  the 
theories  I  had  formed  as  to  their  high  standing."  He 
relates  a  conversation  with  a  member  of  a  prominent  law 
firm,  an  old  family  friend,  which  should  be  reproduced  here, 
not  only  because  of  its  bearing  upon  Roosevelt's  subsequent 
career,  but  for  another  reason  which  will  be  mentioned 
presently.  He  records  that  this  family  friend  took  him  to 
lunch  one  day  with  this  outcome : 

"He  explained  that  I  had  done  well  in  the  Legislature, 
that  it  was  a  good  thing  to  have  made  the  ' reform  play,' 
that  I  had  shown  that  I  possessed  ability  such  as  would 
make  me  useful  in  the  right  kind  of  law  office  or  business 
concern ;  but  that  I  must  not  overplay  my  hand ;  that  I  had 
gone  far  enough,  and  that  now  was  the  time  to  leave  poli- 
tics and  identify  myself  with  the  right  kind  of  people,  the 
people  who  would  always  in  the  long  run  control  others  and 
obtain  the  real  rewards  which  were  worth  having.  I  asked 
him  if  that  meant  that  I  was  to  yield  to  the  ring  in  politics. 
He  answered  somewhat  impatiently  that  I  was  entirely 


16  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

mistaken  (as  in  fact  I  was)  abont  there  being  merely  a 
political  ring,  of  the  kind  of  which  the  papers  were  fond 
of  talking;  that  the  'ring,'  if  it  could  be  called  such — that 
is,  the  inner  circle — included  certain  big  business  men,  and 
the  politicians,  lawyers  and  judges  who  were  in  alliance 
with  and  to  a  certain  extent  dependent  upon  them,  and  that 
the  successful  man  had  to  win  his  success  by  the  backing  of 
the  same  forces,  whether  in  law,  business,  or  politics. 

"This  conversation  not  only  interested  me,  but  made  such 
an  impression  that  I  always  remembered  it,  for  it  was  the 
first  glimpse  I  had  of  that  combination  between  business 
and  politics  which  I  was  in  after  years  so  often  to  oppose.' ' 

The  gist  of  this  friend's  advice  was  that  Theodore  Boose- 
velt  should  cease  to  be  himself,  change  the  personality  to 
which  his  first  success  as  a  public  man  was  due,  and  become 
somebody  else.  Time  was  to  show  that  this  disinterested 
friend  was  the  forerunner  of  a  vast  host  of  the  same  type. 
Throughout  his  career,  at  every  stage  of  its  progress, 
politicians,  statesmen,  editors,  clergymen,  educators  and 
others  bestowed  upon  him  like  advice,  begged  him  to  go 
their  way  instead  of  his  own,  cease  to  be  himself,  and 
become  the  sort  of  man  they  thought  he  should  be.  Abun- 
dant evidence  on  this  point  will  be  forthcoming  as  this 
narrative  proceeds. 


CHAPTER  III 

LEGISLATURE— SECOND  TERM 

The  prestige  that  he  had  won  during  his  first  term  in  the 
Legislature  secured  Roosevelt  a  renomination  without 
opposition  by  the  Republican  organization  of  his  district, 
and  with  the  warm  support  of  the  press  he  was  reelected 
by  an  increased  majority.  His  conduct  during  this  session 
showed  the  same  characteristics  that  had  marked  the  pre- 
ceding one.  In  spite  of  the  advice  of  well-meaning  friends, 
he  persisted  in  being  himself.  He  received  his  party 's 
nomination  for  Speaker,  which  was  merely  honorary,  as 
the  Democrats  had  a  majority  in  the  body.  At  the  preced- 
ing session  a  bill  had  been  introduced  reducing  the  fare  on 
the  elevated  railways  in  New  York  City  from  10  cents  to  5. 
It  was  introduced  as  a  " strike' '  upon  the  railway  company, 
that  is,  with  the  intention  of  making  the  company  use  money 
to  secure  its  defeat.  When  they  were  convinced  that  money 
was  being  so  used,  Roosevelt  and  his  reform  associates 
supported  it,  and  were  confirmed  in  their  conviction  when 
on  final  passage  the  very  members  who  had  introduced  it 
voted  against  it.  It  was  reintroduced  at  the  succeeding 
session,  when  the  company  decided  not  to  use  money  for  its 
defeat  but  to  fight  it  on  its  merits.  The  entire  "  Black 
Horse  Cavalry,' '  including  its  original  supporters,  voted 
against  it,  but  the  honest  members,  including  Roosevelt  and 
his  associates,  voted  for  it,  though  doubtful  about  its  prin- 
ciple, being  influenced  largely  in  their  action  by  the  charac- 
ter of  the  opposition.  It  was  passed,  and  when  it  reached 
the  Governor,  Grover  Cleveland,  he  vetoed  it  on  the  ground 
of  unconstitutionality.  When  an  attempt  was  made  to  pass 
it  over  the  veto,  Roosevelt  supported  the  veto  in  a  speech 

17 


18  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

which  will  always  stand  among  the  most  thoroughly  charac- 
teristic utterances  of  his  career.  Never  was  he  more 
entirely  himself  than  he  was  in  this  confession  of  error  in 
judgment  and  act.    In  the  course  of  it  he  said : 

"I  have  to  say  with  shame  that  when  I  voted  for  this 
bill  I  did  not  act  as  I  think  I  ought  to  have  acted  and  as  I 
generally  have  acted  on  the  floor  of  this  House.  I  have  to 
confess  that  I  weakly  yielded,  partly  in  a  vindictive  spirit, 
toward  the  infernal  thieves  and  conscienceless  swindlers 
who  have  had  the  elevated  railroad  in  charge,  and  partly 
to  the  popular  voice  of  New  York. 

"I  realize  that  they  (managers  of  the  railway)  have  done 
the  most  incalculable  wrong  to  this  community  with  their 
hired  newspapers,  with  their  corruption  of  the  judiciary, 
with  their  corruption  of  past  legislatures.  It  is  not  a  ques- 
tion of  doing  right  to  them.  They  are  merely  common 
thieves.  It  is  not  a  question  of  doing  justice  to  them.  It  is 
a  question  of  doing  justice  to  ourselves.  It  is  a  question  of 
standing  by  what  we  honestly  believe  to  be  right,  even  if  in 
so  doing  we  antagonize  the  feelings  of  our  constituents. 

"We  have  heard  a  great  deal  about  the  people  demand- 
ing the  passage  of  this  bill.  Now,  anything  that  the  people 
demand  that  is  right,  it  is  most  clearly  and  most  emphat- 
ically the  duty  of  this  Legislature  to  do;  but  we  should 
never  yield  to  what  they  demand  if  it  is  wrong. 

"I  would  rather  go  out  of  politics  feeling  that  I  had  done 
what  was  right  than  stay  in  with  the  approval  of  all  men 
knowing  in  my  heart  that  I  had  acted  as  I  ought  not  to." 

This  remarkable  declaration,  the  like  of  which  was  rarely 
ever  heard  in  a  legislative  body,  was  received  with  jeers 
and  veritable  howls  of  delight  by  the  newspapers  that  had 
abused  Eoosevelt  in  the  impeachment  controversy  and  in 
his  other  assault  upon  the  elevated  railway  tax  relief  bill. 
They  were  quite  sure  that  he  had  wrecked  his  political 
career  and  that  little  more  would  be  heard  of  him.  One  of 
them  spoke  of  him  as  a  young  man  of  whom  it  could  be 
truly  said 


*     LEGISLATURE— SECOND  TERM  19 

"His  strong  point  is  his  bank  account, 
His  weak  point  is  his  head." 

Another  one  said :  ' '  The  popular  voice  of  New  York  will 
probably  leave  this  weakling  at  home  hereafter.' '  Another 
spoke  of  the  deliverance  as  the  "last  dying  speech  and  con- 
fession'?  and  declared  that  to  say  it  showed  ' '  characteristic 
manliness/ '  as  a  contemporary  had  done,  was,  "if  not 
trampling  on  a  grave,  certainly  amounts  to  dancing  on  the 
side  of  it."  Still  another  regretted  that  "a  son  of  Theo- 
dore Roosevelt  should  have  brought  this  discredit  upon  a 
name  made  honorable  by  the  private  virtues  and  public 
services  of  his  father." 

These  prophets  undoubtedly  had  faith  in  their  predic- 
tions. Eoosevelt  had  opposed  what  seemed  to  be  an  over- 
whelming popular  sentiment  and  his  critics  could  not  be- 
lieve that  a  public  man  could  do  that  and  not  invite  political 
ruin.  Roosevelt  himself  had  grave  doubts  on  the  subject 
but  they  had  not  influenced  his  action.  When,  in  1918,  I 
was  going  over  with  him  the  account  here  given  of  this 
portion  of  his  career,  we  read  together  the  passages  I  have 
cited  from  this  memorable  speech.  After  a  moment's 
thought  he  said:  "Let  it  stand.  I  expressed  myself  more 
strongly  at  the  time  than  I  would  have  done  had  the  inci- 
dent occurred  later  in  my  life,  but  I  am  willing  to  have 
what  I  said  go  into  the  record  unchanged  for  the  position 
I  took  then  I  have  always  held  and  hold  to-day. ' ' 

Among  his  letters  I  find  one  to  his  son  Theodore  at  Har- 
vard, written  on  October  20,  1903,  which  contains  an  inter- 
esting allusion  to  this  episode  in  his  legislative  career: 

"Immediately  after  leaving  college  I  went  to  the  Legis- 
lature. I  was  the  youngest  man  there,  and  I  rose  like  a 
rocket.  I  was  reelected  next  year  by  an  enormous  majority 
in  a  time  when  the  Republican  party  as  a  whole  met  with 
great  disaster ;  and  the  Republican  minority  in  the  Assem- 
bly, although  I  was  the  youngest  member,  nominated  me  for 
Speaker,  that  is,  made  me  the  leader  of  the  minority.  I 
immediately  proceeded    to    lose  my  perspective,  and  the 


20  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

result  was  that  I  came  an  awful  cropper  and  had  to  pick 
myself  up  after  learning  by  bitter  experience  the  lesson 
that  I  was  not  all-important  and  that  I  had  to  take  account 
of  many  different  elements  in  life.  It  took  me  fully  a  year 
before  I  got  back  the  position  I  had  lost,  but  I  hung  steadily 
at  it  and  achieved  my  purpose." 

Another  man  who  took  a  leading  part  in  the  incident  and 
who,  like  Eoosevelt,  was  destined  to  attain  the  highest  office 
in  the  gift  of  the  people  of  the  nation,  was  Grover  Cleve- 
land. Many  years  later,  in  the  fall  of  1891,  in  the  course 
of  an  intimate  conversation  with  him  at  his  residence  in 
New  York  City,  I  spoke  of  his  veto  of  the  five  cent  fare  bill. 
With  that  unrestrained  frankness  which  was  characteristic 
of  him,  he  said : 

"I  was  convinced  that  the  bill  was  wrong,  that  it  was 
unjust  and  might  lead  to  practical  confiscation.  I  had  no 
choice  but  to  veto  it,  but  I  had  not  a  doubt  in  the  world  that 
by  so  doing  I  was  ruining  my  political  career.  As  I  got  into 
bed  that  night  after  writing  and  signing  my  veto  message 
I  said  to  myself,  *  Grover  Cleveland,  you've  done  the  busi- 
ness for  yourself  to-night. '  The  next  morning  I  went  down 
to  the  Executive  Office  feeling  pretty  blue  but  putting  a 
smiling  face  on  it.  I  didn't  look  at  the  morning  papers, 
didn't  think  they  had  anything  to  say  that  I  cared  to  see. 
I  went  through  my  morning  mail  with  my  secretary,  Dan 
Lamont,  pretending  all  the  time  I  didn't  care  about  the 
papers  but  thinking  of  them  all  the  time  just  the  same. 
When  we  had  finished  I  said,  as  indifferently  as  I  could, 
'Seen  the  morning  papers,  Dan?'  He  said  'yes.'  'What 
have  they  got  to  say  about  me,  anything! '  'Why,  yes,  they 
are  all  praising  you. '  '  They  are !  Well,  here,  let  me  see 
them!'  I  tell  you  I  grabbed  them  pretty  quickly  and  felt 
a  good  deal  better.' f 

Eoosevelt  soon  made  it  apparent  that  whatever  might 
be  the  effect  upon  his  political  fortunes,  the  affair  had  not 
in  the  slightest  degree  lessened  his  courage  or  modified  his 


LEGISLATURE— SECOND  TERM  21 

determination  to  follow  his  own  convictions  in  spite  of  all 
obstacles.  He  continued  to  be  himself,  and  in  doing  so 
demonstrated  very  quickly  that  he  had  not  lost  his  popu- 
larity, neither  had  his  fighting  vigor  abated.  Several  acts 
and  utterances  during  the  remainder  of  the  session  are 
worthy  of  record  for  they  were  the  keynotes  of  his  subse- 
quent career. 

One  that  all  the  veteran  politicians  regarded  as 
" suicidal' '  had  occurred  during  his  first  term  in  the  Legis- 
lature and  was  repeated  in  the  second.  An  item  was 
included  in  the  regular  Supply  Bill  appropriating  a  sum 
of  money  for  a  private  institution  called  the  Catholic  Pro- 
tectory. Roosevelt  objected  to  it  on  the  ground  that  it  was 
unconstitutional  because  it  violated  the  stipulation  of  the 
State  constitution  which  forbade  the  use  of  public  money 
for  a  private  institution.  Furthermore,  such  proposals 
brought  into  the  Legislature  the  question  of  politics  and 
religion.  He  had  opposed  a  similar  grant  to  a  Protestant 
institution  on  precisely  the  same  grounds  and  he  should 
continue  to  fight  all  such  tooth  and  nail.  He  had  many 
warm  personal  friends  in  the  Catholic  faith  and  the  man 
who  had  done  more  for  him  politically  than  any  one  else 
was  a  Catholic.  He  believed  that  he  was  acting  in  unison 
with  the  sentiment  of  those  intelligent  members  of  the 
Catholic  Church  who  indorsed  the  utterances  of  one  of  the 
greatest  of  Catholics,  Daniel  O'Connell,  that  religion  ought 
to  be  kept  from  politics. 

.  Roosevelt's  opposition  did  not  avail  to  defeat  either  the 
Catholic  or  Protestant  appropriation,  both  being  voted  by 
a  large  majority.  This  early  stand  is  noteworthy  as  being 
the  first  assertion  of  a  rule  of  conduct  which  he  maintained 
inflexibly  throughout  his  career,  and  which,  be  it  said  to  the 
honor  of  the  great  body  of  both  Catholics  and  Protestants, 
won  for  him  their  confidence  and  esteem. 

vV)n  several  other  occasions  he  gave  utterance  to  convic- 
tions and  principles  of  conduct  which  he  ever  afterwards 
upheld,  showing  that  at  this  early  stage  of  his  career  his 
character  was  already  established  on  immutable  lines.    A 


22  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

bill  was  introduced  to  amend  the  Penal  Code  so  as  to  permit 
publishers  and  editors  of  newspapers  to  be  sued  for  libel 
in  any  place  in  the  state  in  which  their  newspapers  circu- 
lated. This  was  declared  to  be  an  effort  to  gag  the  press, 
and  a  motion  was  made  to  kill  the  bill  by  striking  out  its 
enacting  clause.  In  supporting  this  motion,  Koosevelt  said : 
' '  Taking  it  for  granted  that  this  is  a  bill  for  gagging  the 
newspapers,  I  trust  that  the  motion  will  prevail.  I  think 
that  if  there  is  one  thing  we  ought  to  be  careful  about  it  is 
in  regard  to  interfering  with  the  liberty  of  the  press.  We 
have  all  of  us  at  times  suffered  from  the  liberty  of  the  press, 
but  we  have  to  take  the  good  and  the  bad.  I  think  we 
certainly  ought  to  hesitate  very  seriously  before  passing 
any  law  that  will  interfere  with  the  broadest  public  utter- 
ance. I  think  it  is  a  great  deal  better  to  err  a  little  bit  on 
the  side  of  having  too  much  discussion  and  having  too  viru- 
lent language  used  by  the  press,  rather  than  to  err  on  the 
side  of  having  them  not  say  what  they  ought  to  say, 
especially  with  reference  to  public  men  and  measures.  I 
heartily  agree  with  the  propositon  to  have  the  enacting 
clause  of  the  bill  stricken  out." 

The  motion  was  carried  without  a  division.  Thirty-four 
years  later,  during  the  European  War,  Eoosevelt  upheld 
the  same  position  in  regard  to  criticism  of  the  Wilson 
Administration's  conduct  of  the  war,  having  never  varied 
from  his  first  adherence  to  it. 

Eoosevelt  succeeded  in  getting  before  the  Assembly  at 
this  session  a  bill  reforming  the  Civil  Service  of  New  York 
City  by  applying  to  it  the  provisions  of  the  national  Civil 
Service  law.  He  could  not  get  it  passed  by  the  Democratic 
body,  but  he  was  able,  at  a  committee  hearing  on  its  provi- 
sions, to  get  his  views  on  the  subject  placed  upon  record. 
"My  object,"  he  said,  "in  pushing  this  measure  is  less  to 
raise  the  standard  of  the  civil  service  than  it  is  to  take  the 
office-holders  out  of  politics.  It  is  a  good  thing  to  raise 
the  character  of  our  public  employees  but  it  is  better  still 
to  take  out  of  politics  the  vast  band  of  hired  mercenaries 


LEGISLATURE— SECOND  TERM  23 

whose  very  existence  depends  on  their  success,  and  who  can 
almost  always  in  the  end  overcome  the  efforts  of  men  whose 
only  care  is  to  secure  a  pure  and  honest  government,  for 
in  such  a  contest  the  discipline  of  regulars,  fighting  literally 
for  their  means  of  livelihood,  is  sure  in  the  end  to  over- 
come the  spasmodic  ardor  of  volunteers." 

This  was  a  thoroughly  bad  session  of  the  Legislature  and 
the  most  that  Roosevelt  and  the  little  band  of  men  whom 
he  led  could  accomplish  was  to  defeat  some  of  the  worst 
jobs.  Eoosevelt,  instead  of  being  a  ruined  man,  came  out 
of  the  session  standing  higher  in  public  esteem  than  ever 
before.  One  of  the  press  commentators  said :  "Mr.  Roose- 
velt lasted  to  the  end,  when  he  was  stronger  than  at  the 
beginning.,,  Another:  "Mr.  Roosevelt  enjoys  the  dis- 
tinction of  having  convictions  and  living  up  to  them.,, 
Another:  "Mr.  Roosevelt's  Voice  and  vote  are  sure  for 
what  is  honest,  wise  and  progressive. ' ' 


CHAPTER   IV 
LEGISLATURE— THIRD  TERM 

In  the  State  election  of  1883  the  Republicans  secured  a 
majority  in  both  houses  of  the  Legislature.  Roosevelt  was 
reelected,  in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  some  of  the  party 
machine  leaders  of  his  district  whose  interests  and  schemes 
he  had  antagonized.  It  was  quite  generally  admitted  that 
his  course  in  the  two  preceding  Legislatures  had  been  the 
chief  influence  in  causing  the  Democratic  defeat.  One  of 
the  most  influential  of  the  Republican  newspapers  outside 
the  city  of  New  York  said:  "It  should  not  be  forgotten 
that  Theodore  Roosevelt  led  the  Republican  minority  in 
the  last  Assembly  and  that  the  minority  has  grown  into  a 
powerful  majority.  Much  of  the  success  of  the  Republicans 
in  the  recent  elections  was  due  to  the  record  made  by  these 
legislators  in  opposition  to  Democratic  schemes  of  extrava- 
gance and  corruption.  Much  of  that  record  was  due  to  the 
sleepless  activity  of  their  intrepid  leader,  Theodore  Roose- 
velt. He  led  the  minority  to  victory,  and  it  is  only  fitting 
that  he  should  now  receive  a  grateful  acknowledgment  of 
his  services  by  being  elevated  to  the  Speakership." 

He  frankly  declared  himself  a  candidate  for  Speaker  and 
received  the  warm  support  of  all  except  the  most  avowedly 
partisan  of  the  Republican  journals/of  the  State.  But  from 
the  outset  of  the  canvass,  the  old  leaders  of  the  party  who 
represented  the  interests  which  he  had  antagonized  in  his 
fearless  opposition  to  "deals"  with  Tammany  Hall  and 
other  disreputable  partisan  doings,  formed  a  combination 
against  him  and  in  the  end  adroitly  compassed  his  defeat. 
They  brought  this  about  by  having  the  most  discredited  of 
the  machine  leaders  in  his  district  pretend  to  support  him 

24 


LEGISLATURE— THIRD  TERM  25 

till  the  vote  in  caucus  was  reached,  when  they  deserted  him 
<and  nominated  the  rival  candidate. 

'*•'  The  Speaker  thus  chosen  soon  revealed  his  obligations 
to  the  members  of  the  combination  to  which  he  owed  his 
election.  He  could  not  refuse  to  appoint  Roosevelt  to  the 
chairmanship  of  the  Committee  on  Cities,  but  in  placing 
him  there  he  associated  him  with  a  body  of  men  who  were 
known  not  to  be  in  harmony  with  his  views  and  who  could 
be  depended  upon  to  hinder  rather  than  help  him  in  work 
of  great  importance  which  he  had  avowed  his  intention  to 
undertake.  Once  again,  the  newspapers  that  had  persist- 
ently assailed  him  since  his  appearance  in  public  life,  in- 
dulged joyfully  in  prophecy  of  his  ruin,  either  as  accom- 
plished or  speedily  to  ensue.  "This  will  not  be  a  Happy 
New  Year  to  the  exquisite  Mr.  Roosevelt/ '  said  the  chief 
of  them,  "but  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  comparatively  young,  and 
time  is  a  kind  physician."  This  prophet  was  not  long  in 
discovering  that  this  year  was  destined  to  be,  if  not  the 
happiest  of  Roosevelt's  life  thus  far,  the  most  active  and 
most  useful  of  his  Legislative  career. 

The  Speaker,  in  addition  to  " packing' '  the  Committee 
on  Cities  against  Roosevelt,  sought  to  thrust  upon  him  a 
clerk  whom  he  had  not  chosen  and  did  not  desire,  but  ener- 
getic personal  protest  persuaded  the  Speaker  to  abandon 
his  purpose.  It  soon  became  apparent  that,  whatever  might 
be  the  predilections  of  the  members  of  the  Committee,  the 
chairman  had  views  of  his  own  and  was  determined  to  put 
them  into  practice.  His  first  act  was  to  introduce  two 
measures  of  great  importance  to  New  York  City,  one  giving 
the  Mayor  absolute  power  of  appointment  and  removal  of 
heads  of  departments,  abolishing  the  confirming  power  over 
such  appointments  exercised  by  the  Board  of  Aldermen. 
The  other  was  a  High  License  bill,  greatly  increasing  the 
liquor  license  fees  in  cities  of  over  100,000  inhabitants. 
Few  measures  could  be  devised  that  would  be  more  certain 
to  incur  the  bitter  hostility  of  corrupt  political  interests 
than  these  two.  Through  their  confirming  powers,  the 
Aldermen  were  able  to  thwart  all  efforts  for  good  govern- 


26  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

ment  of  the  city  that  a  Mayor  might  make.  They  would 
confirm  the  appointment  only  of  men  of  their  own  sort  and 
a  worse  sort  could  not  be  imagined.  They  gave  a  bad 
Mayor  full  excuse  for  all  objectionable  selections  that  he 
might  make  for  he  could  always  say  that  no  others  would 
be  confirmed.  In  regard  to  high  license,  the  politicians  of 
both  parties  catered  to  and  were  in  close  alliance  with  the 
liquor-dealers,  and  viewed  with  wrath  and  alarm  any 
measure  that  threatened  to  disrupt  those  relations. 

Closely  following  the  organization  of  the  Legislature, 
special  committees  were  appointed  in  both  houses  to  inves- 
tigate municipal  departments  in  the  city  of  New  York. 
Eoosevelt  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the  Assembly  Com- 
mittee and  he  entered  at  once  upon  the  task  assigned  to  it 
with  enthusiasm  and  determination.  There  had  been  many 
such  committees  in  the  past  but  few  of  them  had  accom- 
plished much  of  permanent  value,  for  the  reason  that  as 
soon  as  they  began  to  make  revelations  that  were  damag- 
ing to  the  city's  rulers,  the  political  machinery  of  both 
parties  was  put  in  operation  to  "call  them  off,"  that  is, 
stop  the  inquiry  or  sidetrack  it  into  comparatively  harm- 
less channels.  An  attempt  was  made  at  the  outset  to  estab- 
lish a  check  on  the  Assembly  Committee  by  a  proposal  to 
have  it  work  jointly  with  the  Senate  Committee.  Eoosevelt 
defeated  this  by  flatly  declining  the  proposal,  a  proceeding 
which  was  fully  justified  by  the  obvious  fact  that  the  Senate 
Committee  had  been  made  up,  not  for  a  genuine  investiga- 
tion, but  for  one  of  the  old  kind. 

He  took  full  control  of  the  Assembly  Committee  from 
the  start,  and  began  at  once  to  make  revelations  which 
startled  the  city  and  ultimately  attracted  the  attention  of 
the  country.  Various  well-established  devices  were  tried 
by  the  disreputable  politicians  of  both  parties  to  arrest  his 
progress,  but  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  legislative 
investigations  they  failed  utterly  because  of  his  vigilance 
in  foreseeing  and  thwarting  them.  Within  a  few  weeks 
he  had  aroused  such  an  overwhelming  popular  sentiment  in 
his  support  that  all  efforts  to  hamper  him  ceased.     His 


LEGISLATURE— THIRD  TERM  27 

committee  made  a  report  summing  up  in  the  plain  and 
vigorous  language  of  its  chairman  the  results  of  its  labors 
and  proposing  for  enactment  seven  measures  of  reform 
which  provided  for  a  complete  change  in  the  methods  of 
city  government,  abolishing  the  old  system  under  which 
the  corrupt  politicians  of  both  parties  had  been  robbing 
the  city  for  many  years.  These  became  known  as  the  Roose- 
velt reform  bills.  The  city  press,  with  a  few  insignificant 
exceptions,  supported  these  measures.  Great  mass  meet- 
ings of  citizens  were  held  to  advocate  their  passage  as  well 
as  that  of  the  bill  abolishing  the  confirming  powers  of  the 
Aldermen  and  that  decreeing  high  liquor  licenses.  In  the 
end,  the  seven,  as  well  as  the  Aldermanic  measure,  were 
passed,  but  the  High  License  bill,  although  favored  by  the 
Church  Temperance  Society  and  the  leading  Protestant 
clergymen  of  the  city,  failed  of  final  passage.  This  was 
many  years  before  the  appearance  of  the  prohibition  wave 
which  later  swept  over  the  country  and  Roosevelt's  posi- 
tion at  the  time  was  in  harmony  with  that  held  by  the  great 
body  of  temperance  advocates. 

In  addition  to  the  city  reform  bills,  Roosevelt  succeeded 
in  securing  the  passage  of  a  civil  service  bill,  applying  the 
provisions  of  the  national  Civil  Service  law  to  all  cities  of 
the  State  having  a  population  of  20,000  or  more.  A  des- 
perate effort  was  made  to  have  the  police  force  of  New 
York  City  exempted  from  the  provisions  of  the  law,  but 
Roosevelt  defeated  this  by  investigating  the  Police  Depart- 
ment and  showing  that  the  worst  evils  in  the  force  were 
due  to  the  practice  of  making  appointments  to  it  on  political 
influence  alone.  He  tried  also  to  have  the  Police  Depart- 
ment put  under  a  single  head  and  to  abolish  the  Bureau  of 
Elections,  which  was  under  the  control  of  an  expert  Repub- 
lican " dealer,' '  the  most  pernicious  and  rascally  specimen 
of  his  class  and  time,  but  the  political  mercenaries  of  the 
two  parties,  grievously  crippled  in  their  business  as  they 
were  by  the  other  Roosevelt  reform  bills,  were  able  to  rally 
sufficient  strength  to  defeat  these  additional  assaults. 

It  is  worth  while,  in  order  to  show  the  high  place  which 


28  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Eoosevelt  had  won  in  public  estimation  during  this  third 
session,  to  quote  a  few  of  the  comments  which  the  press  of 
all  parties  and  shades  of  opinion,  in  New  York  and  else- 
where, made  upon  him  at  the  time.  The  Democratic  jour- 
nal which  had  so  often  predicted  his  ruin  and  had  informed 
him  that  his  New  Year  was  not  to  be  a  happy  one,  was  one 
of  the  warmest  in  his  praise.  When  his  seven  bills  were 
before  the  Legislature,  this  journal  said  of  him: 

"Mr.  Eoosevelt,  to  whom  the  credit  of  the  bills  already- 
passed  or  certain  to  pass  is  due,  has  displayed  a  boldness, 
directness  and  energy  of  which  much  older  and  more 
experienced  politicians  might  well  be  proud.  We  are  will- 
ing to  accord  honor  wherever  it  is  due.  We  only  wish  we 
had  a  Democratic  House  of  Eepresentatives  at  Washington 
as  efficient  and  vigorous  as  the  Eepublican  State  Legisla- 
ture, and  a  Democratic  Congressman  as  active,  resolute  and 
practical  as  Assemblyman  Eoosevelt.  * ' 

Another  city  journal,  which  was  later  to  become  one  of 
his  most  captious  critics,  spoke  of  his  work  in  the  Legisla- 
ture as  "influential  and  memorable,' '  adding:  "There 
have  been  no  disagreements  among  the  members  of  his 
Investigating  Committee.  He  has  been  able  to  inspire  his 
associates  with  something  of  his  own  zeal  for  reform,  and 
has  apparently  had  no  difficulty  in  securing  their  complete 
faith  in  the  fearless  disinterestedness  of  his  labors." 

During  the  exciting  scenes  in  the  Legislature  when  the 
Eoosevelt  bills  were  on  final  passage,  with  all  the  "dealers" 
seeking,  sometimes  with  the  covert  aid  of  the  Speaker,  to 
defeat  them,  the  city  newspapers  placed  their  Albany 
despatches  under  such  headlines  as  "A  Big  Day  for  Eoose- 
velt"; "Under  Eoosevelt 's  Whip";  " Eoosevelt 's  Brilliant 
Assault  on  Corruption";  "Theodore,  the  Cyclone  Hero  of 
the  Assembly." 

In  sections  of  the  country  outside  of  New  York  State, 
the  newspapers  held  up  Eoosevelt  as  a  model  for  imitation 
by  young  men  everywhere.  A  Boston  journal  said  of  his 
political  career,  "Though  less  than  three  years  in  length, 
it  is  long  enough  to  show  how  much  can  be  achieved  by  a 


LEGISLATURE— THIRD  TERM  29 

young  man  of  ability  and  integrity,  who  has  the  wit  to 
organize  practical  reforms,  the  faculty  to  inspire  others 
with  his  own  faith  in  his  measures,  and  the  tact  and  persis- 
tency to  secure  their  adoption  by  the  requisite  majority." 
Another  journal  in  the  same  city  called  attention  to  a  purely 
Eooseveltian  method  which  he  followed  throughout  his 
career:  "His  example  and  career  should  stimulate  others 
equally  favorably  situated  to  do  something  in  the  line  where 
he  has  wrought  so  well.  We  never  heard  that  Eoosevelt 
sneered  at  American  politics  or  affected  to  deride  those 
engaged  in  the  comparatively  humble  business  of  law- 
making. On  the  contrary,  he  has  sought  to  elevate  politics 
by  turning  it  into  right  channels  and  has  honored  the  office 
of  State  representative. ' '  Another  New  England  journal 
said :  * '  Mr.  Eoosevelt  is  rapidly  making  toward  the  front 
rank  of  lejadership  in  New  York.  And  his  progress  comes 
as  the  natural  result  of  vigorous,  effective  and  unimpeach- 
ably  hone*st  work  for  the  city  in  which  he  dwells.  He  has 
been  called  a  l  swell, '  but  it  would  be  well  if  every  State  had 
just  such  swells  who  are  not  afraid  of  the  people,  know 
what  they  want  and,  more  than  that,  know  how  to  satisfy 
the  popular  desire  for  relief  from  municipal  burdens. ' ' 

A  Philadelphia  newspaper  said:  "The  career  of  this 
young  man,  who  has  gone  boldly  and  honorably  into  public 
life,  ought  to  shame  thousands  who  complain  that  politics 
are  so  dirty  that  no  decent  gentleman  can  engage  in  them. ' ' 
A  Western  journal  said:  "Mr.  Eoosevelt,  like  William 
Pitt,  is  accused  of  the  awful  crime  of  being  a  young  man. 
It  is  a  very  great  pity  that  we  have  not  some  more  young 
men  like  him  in  public  life.  Let  them  all  come  to  the  front 
and  take  part  in  the  government. ' ' 

The  weekly  illustrated  journals  broke  out  in  full  page 
cartoons  of  Eoosevelt  in  various  guises.  One  of  them  repre- 
sented him  with  a  huge  pair  of  scissors  clipping  the  claws 
of  the  Tammany  Tiger;  another  as  Ajax  defying  the  cor- 
rupt influences  behind  police  corruption ;  another  as  a  wood- 
man cutting  down  a  huge  tree  of  municipal  graft  and 
rascality;  another  represented  him  garbed  as  a  policeman. 


30  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

entitled  "Our  New  Watchman,  Roosevelt,' '  in  the  act  of 
dismissing  the  political  bosses.  When  Governor  Cleve- 
land signed  the  Roosevelt  bills,  Nast  published  a  cartoon, 
representing  Roosevelt  standing  with  the  bills  before 
Cleveland,  who  was  seated  at  his  desk,  pen  in  hand,  in  the 
act  of  signing.  This  was  entitled  "Reform  without 
Bloodshed." 

The  action  of  the  highest  court  of  the  State  in  regard  to 
the  constitutionality  of  a  measure  which  he  had  succeeded 
in  having  made  a  law  during  his  final  term  in  the  Legisla- 
ture is  worthy  of  special  record  here  for  reasons  which  will 
be  stated  presently.  The  measure,  which  had  been  pro- 
posed by  the  Cigar-Makers'  Union,  prohibited  the  manu- 
facture of  cigars  in  tenement  houses.  Roosevelt  was  ap- 
pointed one  of  a  committee  of  three  to  investigate  condi- 
tions in  tenement  houses  and  see  if  the  legislation  was 
desirable.  He  made  several  visits  to  the  houses  in  which 
the  work  was  carried  on,  going  sometimes  with  other  mem- 
bers of  the  committee  and  at  other  times  alone.  What  he 
saw  convinced  him  thafthe  legislation  was  not  only  desir- 
able but  vitally  necessary  if  the  children  of  the  workers  in 
question  were  to  grow  up  fitted  for  the  duties  of  American 
citizenship.  He  ardently  championed  the  bill  and  per- 
suaded Governor  Cleveland  to  sign  it,  though  it  was  a 
crudely  drawn  measure.  When  it  was  carried  to  the  Court 
of  Appeals,  on  a  question  of  its  constitutionality,  the  court 
in  1885j*held  that  it  was  not  a  proper  exercise  of  the  police 
power,  that  it  interfered  with  the  profitable  and  free  use 
of  his  property  by  the  owner  or  his  lessee,  and  that  a  con- 
stitutional guaranty  was  violated.  In  rendering  its  deci- 
sion, the  court  said : 

"It  cannot  be  perceived  how  the  cigar-maker  is  to  be 
improved  in  his  health  or  his  morals  by  forcing  him  from 
his  home  and  its  hallowed  associations  and  beneficent  influ- 
ences to  ply  his  trade  elsewhere." 

As  Roosevelt  in  his  personal  visits  to  the  tenement  houses 
had  found  that  in  nearly  all  cases  the  work  had  been  car- 
ried on  by  men,  women  and  children  living,  working,  eating 


LEGISLATURE— THIRD  TERM  31 

and  sleeping  in  the  same  rooms,  sometimes  in  one  room, 
and  in  one  instance,  by  two  families  in  one  room,  two 
women,  two  men,  several  children  and  an  adult  male 
boarder,  his  disgust  and  wrath  at  these  remarks  about 
"hallowed  associations"  and  " beneficent  influences  of  his 
home"  were  deep  and  abiding.  He  says  in  his  *  Auto- 
biography': 

"It  was  this  case  which  first  waked  me  to  a  dim  and 
partial  understanding  of  the  fact  that  the  courts  were  not 
necessarily  the  best  judges  of  what  should  be  done  to  better 
social  and  industrial  conditions.  The  judges  who  rendered 
this  decision  were  well-meaning  men.  They  knew  nothing 
whatever  of  tenement-house  conditions ;  they  knew  nothing 
whatever  of  the  needs,  or  of  the  life  and  labor,  of  three 
fourths  of  their  fellow-citizens  in  great  cities.  They  knew 
legalism  but  not  life  .  .  .  This  decision  completely 
blocked  tenement-house  reform  legislation  in  New  York  for 
a  score  of  years.  It  was  one  of  the  most  serious  set-backs 
which  the  cause  of  industrial  and  social  progress  and 
reform  ever  received." 

Viewed  in  the  light  of  his  subsequent  career  the  lasting 
impression  that  his  legislative  experience  had  made  upon 
Boosevelt's  mind  can  easily  be  traced.  His  early  view  that 
the  laws  of  the  land,  as  expounded  in  text  books  and  class- 
rooms and  interpreted  by  lawyers  and  courts,  operated 
often  against  rather  than  in  favor  of  the  attainment  of 
justice,  had  been  confirmed  by  that  experience.  This  was 
the  inevitable  effect  of  his  unsuccessful  attempt  to  secure 
the  impeachment  of  a  judge  notoriously  guilty  of  improper 
dealings  with  a  railway  corporation,  and  equally  so  of  the 
decision  of  the  Court  of  Appeals  upon  the  measure  cited 
above.  His  course  as  President  in  regard  to  the  regulation 
and  control  of  great  corporations,  and  his  later  views  in 
regard  to  the  recall  of  judicial  decisions,  were  no  new 
developments  of  opinion,  but  the  logical  result  of  many 
years  of  serious  thought.  Equally  so  was  the  stand  which 
he  took  during  his  service  as  President  and  maintained  with 
undiminished  zeal  afterwards,  in  favor  of  social  and  indus- 


32  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

trial  betterment  or  reform.  Whatever  opinion  may  be  held 
in  regard  to  his  course  on  these  questions,  no  one  can  say 
truthfully  that  it  was  due  to  sudden  impulse,  or  was  in- 
spired by  a  desire  to  gain  temporary  political  capital.  His 
conduct  was  based  on  precisely  the  same  ideas  and  prin- 
ciples that  had  actuated  his  course  in  the  Legislature  many 
years  earlier,  and  was  inherent  in  the  character  of  the  man. 


CHAPTER  V 

FIRST  APPEARANCE  IN  NATIONAL  POLITICS— MR. 
BLAINE'S  CANDIDACY 

At  the  end  of  his  third  term  in  the  Legislature,  Roosevelt 
had  become  a  distinct  personality  in  national  politics.  His 
advance  had  been  remarkably  rapid.  When  in  the  summer 
of  1881  he  decided  to  take  an  active  part  in  political  affairs 
he  was,  as  I  have  said,  practically  unknown  outside  the 
limits  of  his  own  Assembly  district.  Beforethe  end,iif,Ms 
third  term  his  f ame  Jiad_extended  over  thfij*11^™  nr^nfr-y 
'  He  had  won  such  a  position  of  leadership  in  his  party  in  the 
State  that  when  the  time  came  to  elect  delegates  to  the 
Republican  National  Convention  in  the  spring  of  1884,  he 
was,  with  the  hearty  approval  of  the  great  mass  of  his 
party,  chosen  as  the  chief  of  the  four  delegates-at-large. 
So  strong  was  popular  sentiment  in  his  favor  that  he  easily 
overcame  an  organized  effort  by  the  old  machine  leaders 
in  the  State  Convention  to  prevent  his  selection. 

He  went  to  the  National  Convention  an  avowed  advo- 
cate of  the  nomination  of  Senator  George  F.  Edmunds  of 
Vermont  as  the  Republican  candidate  for  the  Presidency 
in  preference  to  James  G.  Blaine,  who  was  the  favorite  of 
a  majority  of  the  delegates.  The  Blaine  supporters  were 
in  control  of  the  National  Republican  Committee  and  sought 
to  organize  the  Convention  in  their  interest  by  having  a 
man  of  their  choice,  ex-Senator  Powell  Clayton,  of  Ala- 
bama, made  temporary  Chairman.  The  National  Com- 
mittee submitted  this  selection  to  the  Convention  for  ap- 
proval. Senator  H.  C.  Lodge,  a  delegate  from  Massachu- 
setts and  like  Roosevelt  an  avowed  Edmunds  supporter, 
nominated  a  colored  man,  ex-Congressman  John  R.  Lynch 
of  Mississippi.     In  support  of  Senator  Lodge's  motion, 

33 


34  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Eoosevelt  took  the  floor  and  made  his  first  speech  in  a 
national  convention.  As  this  was  his  first  appearance  in 
the  field  of  national  politics  the  impression  which  he  made 
npon  his  audience  is  worthy  of  record.  The  New  York 
Times  of  June  4,  1894,  published  this  account  from  its 
convention  correspondent : 

"Up  from  the  midst  of  the  Empire  State  delegates  rose 
a  slight,  almost  boyish  figure.  It  was  that  of  an  active, 
nervous,  light-haired,  gray-eyed  man  who  had  just  thrown 
off  a  straw  hat  and  scrambled  to  his  perch  on  the  chair,  with 
juvenile  activity.  Everybody  knew  the  man,  for  there  is 
not  a  State  headquarters  which  he  has  not  visited  in  his 
canvass  for  Edmunds,  and  scarce  an  influential  delegate 
with  whom  he  has  not  conversed  in  a  straightforward, 
manly  way,  carrying  conviction  even  when  he  could  not 
convert.  'It  was  Theodore  Eoosevelt,  of  New  York,  the 
leader  of  the  younger  Eepublicans,  and  he  was  greeted 
with  a  rousing  burst  of  applause  as  he  stood  waiting  to 
speak.  When  he  spoke  it  was  not  the  voice  of  a  youth,  but 
of  a  man — and  a  positive,  practical  man.  His  sensible 
speech  was  in  delightful  contrast  with  the  plausible  apol- 
ogies of  the  men  who  had  endeavored  to  excuse  the  outrage 
which  the  National  Committee  had  committed.,, 

The  speech  itself  is  of  historic  value  for  in  it  Eoosevelt 
established  a  precedent  for  a  similar  position  which  he 
took  28  years  later  in  another  national  convention.  Its  full 
text  was  as  follows: 

"I  trust  that  the  motion  made  by  the  gentleman  from 
Massachusetts  (Mr.  Lodge)  will  be  adopted,  and  that  we 
will  select  as  chairman  of  this  convention  that  representa- 
tive Eepublican,  Mr.  Lynch,  of  Mississippi.  Mr.  Chairman, 
it  has  been  said  by  the  distinguished  gentleman  from  Penn- 
sylvania (Mr.  Stewart)  that  it  is  without  precedent  to 
reverse  the  action  of  the  National  Committee.  Who  has 
not  known  numerous  instances  where  the  action  of  a  State 
committee  has  been  reversed  by  the  State  convention?  Not 
one  of  us  but  has  known  such  instances.  Now  there  are, 
as  I  understand  it,  but  two  delegates  to  this  convention  who 


FIRST  APPEARANCE  IN  NATIONAL  POLITICS       35 

have  seats  on  the  National  Committee;  and  I  hold  it  to  be 
derogatory  to  our  honor,  to  our  capacity  for  self-govern- 
ment, to  say  that  we  must  accept  the  nomination  of  a  pre- 
siding officer  by  another  body;  and  that  our  hands  are  tied, 
and  we  dare  not  reverse  its  action. 

"Now,  one  word  more.  I  trust  that  the  vote  will  be  taken 
by  individual  members,  and  not  by  States.  Let  each  man 
stand  accountable  to  those  whom  he  represents  for  his  vote. 
Let  no  man  be  able  to  shelter  himself  behind  the  shield  of 
his  State.  What  we  say  is,  that  one  of  the  cardinal  doc- 
trines of  the  American  political  government  is  the  account- 
ability of  each  man  to  his  people;  and  let  each  man  stand 
up  here  and  cast  his  vote,  and  then  go  home  and  abide  by 
what  he  has  done. 

"It  is  now,  Mr.  Chairman,  less  than  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury since,  in  this  city,  the  great  Republican  party  for  the 
first  time  organized  for  victory,  and  nominated  Abraham 
Lincoln,  of  Illinois,  who  broke  the  fetters  of  the  slave  and 
rent  them  asunder  forever.  It  is  a  fitting  thing  for  us  to 
choose  to  preside  over  this  convention  one  of  the  race  whose 
right  to  sit  within  these  walls  is  due  to  the  blood  and  the 
treasure  so  lavishly  spent  by  the  founders  of  the  Republi- 
can party.  And  it  is  but  a  further  vindication  of  the  prin- 
ciples for  which  the  Republican  party  so  long  struggled. 
I  trust  that  the  Honorable  Mr.  Lynch  will  be  elected  tem- 
porary chairman  of  this  convention. ' ' 

The  effect  of  the  speech  was  shown  in  the  result  of  the 
ballot,  for  Mr.  Lynch  was  elected  by  a  vote  of  431  to  382. 
The  convention  asserted  its  right  to  reverse  the  action  of 
the  National  Committee,  even  if  by  doing  so  it  "violated 
precedent." 

By  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Blaine,  which  followed  later, 
Roosevelt  was  confronted  with  what  in  many  respects  was 
the  most  serious  crisis  of  his  career.  He  had  to  decide 
which  of  two  courses  he  should  choose.  He  must  separate 
himself  completely  from  his  party  and  become  an  absolute 
Independent,  or  stay  within  his  party  and  support  its  regu- 
larly nominated  candidate.    The  nomination  of  Mr.  Blaine 


36  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

had  been  fairly  won.  He  was  unquestionably  the  choice 
of  the  convention.  There  was  no  claim  that  the  will  of  the 
majority  had  been  subverted  either  through  the  action  of 
a  committee  on  contested  seats  or  in  any  other  way.  The 
problem  before  him  was  thus  a  quite  different  one  from  that 
presented  to  him  twenty-eight  years  later  in  the  National 
Republican  Convention  of  1912.  In  opposing  the  nomina- 
tion of  Mr.  Blaine  he  and  his'  Republican  associates  had 
been  acting  with  a  considerable  body  of  professional  Inde- 
pendents, that  is,  men  without  allegiance  to  either  of  the 
great  political  parties.  Though  he  had  been  during  his 
brief  public  career  an  avowed  Republican,  seeking  to 
accomplish  all  his  reforms  through  Republican  aid  and 
inside  party  lines,  his  Independent  associates,  as  soon  as 
the  Blaine  nomination  was  made,  assumed  that  he 
would  leave  his  party  and  join  them  in  seeking  to  ac- 
complish Blaine's  defeat  by  supporting  the  Democratic 
candidate.  In  fact,  they  not  merely  asked  but  demanded 
that  he  abandon  the  course  which  he  had  followed  since  his 
entry  into  political  life  and  upon  which  he  had  built  his 
public  career.  They  were  sincere  in  their  belief  that  he 
should  do  this.  It  seemed  incredible  to  them  that  he  could 
do  anything  else.  He  gave  them  full  credit  for  sincerity, 
but  declared  that  the  question  was  one  that  he  must  insist 
upon  deciding  for  himself.  He  admitted  frankly  that  he 
had  worked  hard  for  the  nomination  of  Edmunds  and  was 
savagely  indignant  at  his  defeat,  but  he  declined  to  say  at 
once  what  course  he  should  pursue  in  regard  to  the  nomi- 
nation of  Mr.  Blaine.  Various  devices  were  used  to  force 
him  to  declare  his  intentions,  some  by  Republican  politi- 
cians, and  others,  not  entirely  creditable,  by  leading  Inde- 
pendents, but  all  in  vain.  He  insisted  upon  deciding  the 
question  for  himself,  and  in  his  own  way  and  time.  He  went 
direct  from  the  convention  in  Chicago  to  his  ranch  in 
Dakota,  and  several  weeks  later  put  forth  a  formal  state- 
ment in  which  he  defined  his  decision  as  follows : 

"I  intend  to  vote  the  Republican  Presidential  ticket. 
While  at  Chicago  I  told  Mr.  Lodge  that  such  was  my  inten- 


FIRST  APPEARANCE  IN  NATIONAL  POLITICS       37 

tion,  but  before  announcing  it  I  wished  to  have  time  to 
think  the  matter  over.  A  man  cannot  act  both  without  and 
within  the  party;  he  can  do  either,  but  he  cannot  possibly 
do  both.  Each  course  has  its  advantages  and  each  has  its 
disadvantages,  and  one  cannot  take  the  advantages  or  the 
disadvantages  separately.  I  went  in  with  my  eyes  open  to 
do  what  I  could  within  the  party;  I  did  my  best  and  got 
beaten,  and  I  propose  to  stand  by  the  result.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  combine  the  functions  of  a  guerilla  chief  with  those 
of  a  colonel  in  the  regular  army;  one  has  a  greater  inde- 
pendence of  action,  the  other  is  able  to  make  what  action  he 
does  take  vastly  more  effective.  In  certain  contingencies 
the  one  can  do  most  good,  in  certain  contingencies  the 
other;  but  there  is  no  use  in  accepting  a  commission  and 
then  trying  to  play  the  game  out  on  a  lone  hand. 

"During  the  entire  canvass  for  the  nomination  Mr.  Blaine 
received  but  two  checks — one  was  at  the  Utica  Convention, 
the  other  was  the  Powell  Clayton  incident.  I  had  a  hand  in 
both,  and  I  could  have  had  a  hand  in  neither  had  not  those 
Eepublicans  who  at  Utica  elected  me  as  the  head  of  the 
New  York  State  delegation  supposed  that  I  would  in  good 
faith  support  the  man  who  was  fairly  made  the  Eepublican 
nominee.  I  am  by  inheritance  and  by  education  a  Eepub- 
lican; whatever  good  I  have  been  able  to  accomplish  in 
public  life  has  been  accomplished  through  the  Eepublican 
party ;  I  have  acted  with  it  in  the  past,  and  wish  to  act  with 
it  in  the  future;  I  went  as  a  regular  delegate  to  the  Chicago 
Convention,  and  I  intend  to  abide  by  the  outcome  of  that 
Convention.  I  am  going  back  in  a  day  or  two  to  my  West- 
ern ranch,  as  I  do  not  expect  to  take  any  part  in  the  cam- 
paign this  fall." 

This  determination  not  to  take  part  in  the  campaign  he 
recalled  later,  for  reasons  which  were  eminently  charac- 
teristic. "When  I  started  out  to  my  ranch  two  months 
ago, ' '  he  said  in  October,  ' '  I  had  no  intention  of  taking  any 
part  whatever  in  the  Presidential  canvass,  and  the  decision 
I  have  now  come  to  is  the  result  of  revolving  the  matter  in 


38  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

my  mind  during  that  time.  It  is  altogether  contrary  to  my 
character  to  occupy  a  neutral  position  in  so  important  and 
exciting  a  struggle,  and  besides  my  natural  desire  to  occupy 
a  positive  position  of  some  kind,  I  made  up  my  mind  that 
it  was  clearly  my  duty  to  support  the  ticket. ' ' 

His  decision  called  forth  bitter  denunciation  from  the 
Independents,  who  declared  that  he  had  deserted  his  prin- 
ciples, and  predicted  with  absolute  conviction  that  he  had 
wrecked  his  career.  The  Democratic  press  took  a  similar 
view  of  his  future  and  declared  that  he  had  always  been  a 
"humbug"  and  a  "political  charlatan,"  a  "reform  fraud" 
and  a  "Jack-in-the-box  politician,"  who  had  now  been  thor- 
oughly found  out.  He  faced  the  storm  of  disapproval  and 
abuse  calmly,  and  in  a  reply  to  an  open  letter  of  regret 
and  remonstrance  from  an  Independent  he  wrote: 

"I  thank  you  for  your  good  opinion  of  my  past  services. 
My  power,  if  I  ever  had  any,  may  or  may  not  be  as  utterly 
gone  as  you  think,  but  most  certainly  it  would  deserve  to 
go  if  I  yielded  any  more  to  the  pressure  of  the  Independents 
at  present,  when  I  consider  them  to  be  wrong,  than  I  yielded 
in  the  past  to  the  pressure  of  the  machine  when  I  thought 
it  wrong." 

He  declined  a  renomination  for  the  Assembly,  which  he 
could  have  had  without  opposition,  and  two  separate  offers 
of  a  nomination  for  Congress  in  as  many  districts  in  which 
he  was  eligible  as  a  candidate,  on  the  ground  that  his 
private  interests,  which  had  been  neglected  during  his 
service  in  the  Legislature,  demanded  all  of  his  attention. 


CHAPTER  VI 

LITERARY  LABORS— TILT  WITH   JEFFERSON  DAVIS- 
CANDIDATE  FOR  MAYOR 

During  his  first  term  in  the  Legislature  Eoosevelt  pub- 
lished, in  May,  1882,  "The  Naval  War  of  1812,"  the  open- 
ing chapters  of  which  he  had  written  while  a  student  in 
Harvard.  He  had  finished  it  while  engaged  in  his  tussle 
with  machine  politics  in  the  Legislature,  demonstrating 
thus  early  in  his  career  his  ability  to  turn  aside  from  public 
and  political  duties  and  concentrate  his  mind  upon  literary 
work.  This  was  merely  the  first  of  many  instances  of  the 
kind  which  occurred  quite  regularly  in  his  subsequent 
career.  The  publication  of  the  Naval  History  came  at  the 
moment  when  his  efforts  to  secure  the  impeachment  of  a 
judge  were  nearing  their  climax  and  when  the  fight  over 
his  other  reform  measures  was  absorbing  public  attention. 
The  book  was  everywhere  well  received  and  the  compli- 
mentary reviews  of  it  in  the  press  appeared  side  by  side 
with  comments,  favorable  and  unfavorable,  upon  his  legis- 
lative achievements,^ The  book  is  notable  as  containing  a 
warning  to  the  nation  of  the  need  of  thorough  preparedness 
for  war  as  the  surest  guaranty  of  peace — a  warning  which 
he  repeated  at  every  opportunity  during  the  succeeding 
thirty-five  years,  the  wisdom  of  which  was  amply  justified 
when  the  folly  of  persistent  disregard  of  it  was  demon- 
strated with  such  disastrous  consequence  at  the  entry  of  the 
United  States  into  the  European  War  in  1917.  In  his 
preface,  written  in  1882,  he  said : 

' '  The  operations  of  this  war  on  land  teach  nothing  new ; 
it  is  the  old,  old  lesson  that  miserly  economy  in  preparation 
may  in  the  end  involve  a  lavish  outlay  of  men  and  money 
which,  after  all,  comes  too  late  to  more  than  partially  off- 

39 


40  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

set  the  evils  produced  by  the  original  shortsighted  parsi- 
mony. It  was  criminal  folly  for  Jefferson  and  his  follower, 
Madison,  to  neglect  to  give  us  a  force  either  of  Eegulars 
or  of  well-trained  Volunteers  during  the  21  years  they  had 
in  which  to  prepare  for  the  struggle  that  any  one  might  see 
was  inevitable. ' ' 
/  "The  necessity  for  an  efficient  Navy  is  so  evident  that 
only  our  almost  incredible  shortsightedness  prevents  our 
at  once  preparing  one. ' ' 

In  a  condensed  history  of  the  same  war,  which  he  wrote 
for  an  English  Naval  History  in  1897,  fifteen  years  later, 
he  reiterated  his  earlier  views,  saving: 

' i  There  never  was  a  better  example  of  the  ultimate  evil 
caused  by  a  timid  effort  to  secure  peace  and  the  refusal  to 
make  preparations  for  war  than  that  afforded  by  the 
American  people  under  the  Presidencies  of  Jefferson  and 
Madison." 

Another  notable  passage  in  this  condensed  history  was 
the  following  in  regard  to  pacifists,  who  many  years  later 
played  so  harmful  and  despicable  a  part  in  the  European 
War: 

"Both  Britain  and  America  have  produced  men  of  the 
'peace-at-any-price'  pattern,  and  in  America,  in  one  great 
crisis  at  least,  these  men  cost  the  Nation  more  in  blood  and 
wealth  than  the  political  leaders  most  recklessly  indifferent 
to  war  have  ever  cost  it*" 

After  the  close  of  the  Presidential  campaign  of  1884, 
Roosevelt  returned  to  his  ranch  in  Dakota,  spending  much 
of  his  time  there  for  several  years,  making  occasional  visits 
to  his  home  in  New  York.  He  took  charge  of  two  cattle 
ranches  and  varied  his  duties  as  ranchman  with  hunting 
trips  and  in  writing  magazine  articles  and  books.  In  1885 
he  published  "The  Hunting  Trips  of  a  Ranchman/ *  two 
volumes;  in  1886,  the  "Life  of  Thomas  H.  Benton,,;  in 
1887,  the  "Life  of  Gouverneur  Morris";  in  1888,  "Ranch 


LITERARY  LABORS— TILT  WITH  JEFFERSON  DAVIS  41 

Life  and  Hunting  Trail";  in  1890,  " History  of  New  York"; 
and  in  1893,  *  *  The  Wilderness  Hunter. ' '  All  of  these  books 
were  written  in  whole  or  in  part  during  this  period. 

In  his  Life  of  Benton,  written  thirty  years  before  the 
entry  of  the  United  States  into  the  European  War,  there 
appears  this  additional  reference  to  pacifists: 

"A  class  of  professional  none ombat ants  is  as  hurtful  to 
the  healthy  growth  of  a  nation  as  a  class  of  fire  eaters,  for 
a  weakness  or  folly  is  nationally  as  bad  as  a  vice,  or  worse. 
No  man  who  is  not  willing  to  bear  arms  and  to  fight  for 
his  rights  can  give  a  good  reason  why  he  should  be  entitled 
to  the  privilege  of  living  in  a  free  country." 

Two  manuscript  letters  of  rare  interest  appear  in  Roose- 
velt's correspondence  of  1885.  One  is  from  Jefferson  Davis, 
written  apparently  in  his  own  hand,  and  the  other  is  a 
copy,  in  Roosevelt's  own  hand,  of  his  reply.    They  are: 

Beauvain,  Miss., 
September  29,  1885. 
Mr,  Theodore  Roosevelt, 

New  York,  New  York. 
Sir: 

You  have  recently  chosen  publicly  to  associate  the  name 
of  Benedict  Arnold  with  that  of  Jefferson  Davis,  as  the 
only  American  with  whom  the  traitor  Arnold  need  not  fear 
comparison. 

You  must  be  ignorant  indeed  of  American  history  if  you 
do  not  know  that  the  career  of  those  characters  might  be 
aptly  chosen  for  contrast,  but  not  for  similitude ;  and  if  so 
ignorant,  the  instinct  of  a  gentleman,  had  you  possessed  it, 
must  have  caused  you  to  make  inquiry  before  uttering  an 
accusation  so  libelous  and  false. 

I  write  you  directly  to  repel  the  unproved  outrage,  but 
with  too  low  an  estimate  of  you  to  expect  an  honorable 
retraction  of  your  slander. 

Yours,  etc., 

(Signed)     Jefferson  Davis. 


42  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

New  York,  October  8,  1885. 
"Mr.  Theodore  Roosevelt  is  in  receipt  of  a  letter  pur- 
porting to  come  from  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis,  and  denying 
that  the  character  of  Mr.  Davis  compares  unfavorably  with 
that  of  Benedict  Arnold.  Assuming  the  letter  to  be  genuine 
Mr.  Roosevelt  has  only  to  say  that  he  would  indeed  be  sur- 
prised to  find  that  his  views  of  the  character  of  Mr.  Davis 
did  not  differ  radically  from  that  apparently  entertained 
in  relation  thereto  by  Mr.  Davis  himself.  Mr.  Roosevelt 
begs  leave  to  add  that  he  does  not  deem  it  necessary  that 
there  should  be  any  further  communication  whatever  be- 
tween himself  and  Mr.  Davis.' ' 

In  the  autumn  of  1886  he  was  offered  and  accepted  the 
Republican  nomination  for  Mayor  of  New  York  City.  He 
was  also  nominated  for  the  office  by  a  Committee  of  Busi- 
ness Men  and  an  Independent  Committee  of  Citizens.  His 
nomination  was  based  upon  his  record  in  the  Legislature, 
and  in  his  letter  of  acceptance  and  campaign  speeches  he 
pledged  himself,  if  elected,  to  devote  all  his  energies  to 
securing  honest  and  efficient  city  government  without  re- 
gard to  partizan  considerations  of  any  sort.  The  contest 
was  a  three-cornered  one,  with  Abram  S.  Hewitt  as  the 
nominee  of  Tammany  and  other  Democratic  organizations, 
and  Henry  George  as  the  nominee  of  labor  and  socialist 
organizations.  The  Independents,  or  Mugwumps  as  they 
were  called,  unable  to  forgive  Roosevelt  for  his  advocacy 
of  Blaine,  supported  Mr.  Hewitt,  who  was  elected.  He  was 
a  man  of  ability  and  probity,  who  had  made  an  excellent 
record  in  Congress,  and  the  Independents  took  the  ground 
that  even  with  his  Tammany  support  he  could  be  depended 
upon  to  be  a  better  and  more  useful  Mayor  than  Roosevelt 
would  be  able  to  be  with  the  support  of  the  Republican 
Machine.  Time  was  to  show  within  a  few  years  that  Roose- 
velt as  a  city  official  could  be  depended  upon  so  thoroughly 
to  give  the  city  valuable  service  in  spite  of  Republican 
Machine  support  that  the  same  Independents  would  lament 
his  departure  from  municipal  administration. 


CHAPTEE  Vn 

CIVIL  SERVICE  COMMISSIONER 

In  May,  1889,  President  Harrison  appointed  Eoosevelt  a 
member  of  the  United  States  Civil  Service  Commission. 
The  conditions  of  the  civil  service  at  this  time  were  such  as 
to  make  the  position  an  alluring  one  to  Eoosevelt.  He  had 
been  an  active  and  zealous  advocate  of  civil  service  reform 
since  the  moment  of  his  entry  into  public  life.  Various 
efforts  had  been  made  for  twenty  years  or  more  to  over- 
throw the  spoils  system  as  applied  to  the  civil  service  of 
the  country,  but  with  only  slight  success.  In  1871,  Presi- 
dent Grant  yielded  sufficiently  to  the  demands  of  civil 
service  reform  advocates  to  appoint  a  Civil  Service  Advi- 
sory Board  of  seven  members,  with  George  William  Curtis 
as  chairman.  This  Board  proposed  a  set  of  rules  and  regu- 
lations which  in  the  following  year  were  enlarged  so  as  to 
make  them  applicable  to  the  Departments  at  Washington 
and  the  Federal  offices  in  New  York  City.  These  rules  and 
regulations  were  put  in  force,  with  a  very  moderate  amount 
of  success,  and  continued  in  force  till  1875,  under  constant 
assault  by  the  politicians  of  both  parties.  In  1875  the  oppo- 
sition of  the  politicians  became  so  formidable  that  Con- 
gress yielded  to  it  and  refused  to  grant  an  appropriation 
for  the  expenses  of  the  Advisory  Board,  whereupon  Presi- 
dent Grant  suspended  the  operation  of  the  rules. 

There  was  organized  immediately  in  New  York,  under 
the  leadership  of  Mr.  Curtis,  the  Civil  Service  Eeform 
Association,  which  developed  into  The  National  Civil 
Service  Eeform  League  with  Mr.  Curtis  as  President. 
Eoosevelt  was  a  member  of  this  League  and  took  a  leading 
part  in  the  campaign  of  education  which  it  conducted 
throughout  the  country.     Its  agitation  of  the  reform  re- 

43 


44  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

suited  in  January,  1883,  in  the  introduction,  by  Senator 
Geo.  H.  Pendleton  of  Ohio,  of  a  bill  to  establish  the  merit 
system  in  the  civil  service  of  the  Government.  It  was 
passed  by  both  houses  of  Congress  and  went  into  effect  in 
July,  1883.  As  recorded  in  previous  chapters,  Roosevelt 
endeavored  in  the  same  year  to  have  the  provisions  of  this 
law  applied  to  the  civil  service  of  New  York  City,  but  was 
prevented  by  the  opposition  of  the  Democratic  majority. 
In  the  succeeding  Legislature,  that  of  1884,  which  had  a 
Republican  majority  in  both  houses,  he  succeeded  in  hav- 
ing a  bill  passed  which  applied  the  provisions  of  the  law  to 
all  cities  of  the  State  having  a  population  of  20,000  or  more. 
There  were  23  such  cities  at  the  time. 

When  the  Pendleton  law  went  into  effect  it  brought  about 
14,000  Government  employees  into  the  classified  service, 
but  the  enforcement  of  its  provisions  was  fiercely  and  per- 
sistently obstructed  by  the  politicians  of  both  parties. 
When  Hayes  entered  upon  the  Presidency  under  pledges 
of  support  to  the  reform,  high  hopes  were  cherished  by  its 
advocates  that  valuable  progress  would  be  made  during  his 
administration,  but  these  were  not  realized.  Little  prog- 
ress was  made.  President  Garfield  did  not  live  long  enough 
to  take  action  in  the  matter,  and  only  slight  progress  was 
made  under  President  Arthur.  He  appointed  an  efficient 
Commission  of  three  members,  with  Dorman  B.  Eaton,  one 
of  the  leading  advocates  of  the  reform,  as  chairman,  but 
beyond  drawing  up  a  set  of  rules  this  Commission  was  able 
to  accomplish  little.  President  Cleveland  came  into  office 
with  the  confident  hope  of  the  Mugwumps,  who  had  given 
his  candidacy  valuable  support,  that  he  would  greatly 
enlarge  the  scope  of  the  rules.  By  Executive  Order  he 
brought  7,000  additional  places  into  the  classified  service, 
and  during  his  term,  by  natural  growth,  4,500  others  were 
included.  At  the  close  of  his  term  he  extended  the  rules 
so  as  to  include  employees  in  the  railway  mail  service.  He 
had  during  this,  his  first  term,  greatly  disappointed  the 
advocates  of  the  reform  by  making  what  was  very  nearly  a 
" clean  sweep"  in  the  Presidential  appointees  and  unclassi- 


CIVIL  SERVICE  COMMISSIONER  45 

fied  offices  in  the  service,  including  fourth  class  postmasters. 

When  Harrison  became  President  he  extended  the  time 
for  enforcing  Cleveland's  order  in  regard  to  the  inclusion 
of  railway  mail  service  employees  for  so  long  a  period  that 
before  it  went  into  effect  nearly  all  Democratic  employees 
had  been  removed. 

When  Eoosevelt  entered  upon  his  duties,  on  May  13, 1889, 
the  situation  of  affairs  in  the  Commission  was  one  quite 
satisfactory  to  the  politicians.  There  had  been  at  the  time 
of  his  appointment  only  a  single  member  of  the  Commis- 
sion. One  had  resigned  in  October,  1888,  and  one  had  been 
removed  in  February,  1889.  The  work  of  the  Commission, 
which  had  been  dallying  on  in  a  merely  perfunctory  man- 
ner, had  come  to  virtual  stagnation.  The  appropriation 
for  it  was  quite  inadequate  for  effective  service,  and  the 
salary  of  a  Commissioner,  which  had  been  fixed  purposely 
at  $3,500,  was  so  small  as  to  give  reasonable  assurance  that 
no  one  with  an  alarming  amount  of  ability  or  force  would 
be  likely  to  accept  the  position.  The  contingency  of  a 
young  man  of  private  means,  with  a  patriotic  desire  to  per- 
form useful  public  service,  as  was  the  case  with  Roosevelt, 
being  willing  to  accept  such  a  place,  had  not  been  foreseen. 
During  the  six  years  of  the  law's  existence  its  enforcement 
had  been  quite  uniformly  so  gentle  that  the  business  of 
practical  politics  had  not  been  seriously  disturbed.  The 
various  Commissions  had  been  composed  of  men  of  quiet 
disposition  and  mature  years,  whose  natural  inclination  was 
to  follow  the  lines  of  least  resistance  in  all  matters  of  policy. 
They  were  affected  more  or  less  by  the  attitude  of  both  the 
politicians  and  the  public  generally  toward  the  law  as  being 
not  a  real  law  but  a  kind  of  sentimental  proposition  put 
forth  to  please  a  lot  of  "fool  reformers.' '  For  many  years 
declarations  in  the  national  platforms  of  both  political 
parties  had  been  composed  and  adopted  on  this  basis  alone. 
The  law  of  1883  had  been  passed  with  the  same  general  idea 
in  the  minds  even  of  those  who  had  voted  for  it.  It  would 
serve  as  a  sop  for  a  few  "long-haired  cranks,"  and  would 
amount  to  nothing  in  practise. 


46  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

The  manner  in  which  the  law  was  enforced  during  the 
first  six  years  justified  this  view.  In  many  instances  its 
administration  was  a  sham,  and  in  all  instances  no  effort 
was  made  to  detect,  expose  and  punish  violations  of  either 
its  letter  or  spirit.  There  was  no  more  peaceful  abode  of 
official  life  in  Washington  in  May,  1889,  than  the  serene 
home  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission  when  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  in  abounding  health  and  vigor  from  his  six  years 
of  ranching  and  hunting  life,  walked  in  and  took  possession, 
after  the  retirement  of  the  incumbents.  While  he  was  nom- 
inally one  of  a  Commission  of  three  members,  from  the 
moment  of  his  entry  he  was,  in  the  words  of  the  newspaper 
correspondents  at  Washington,  himself  the  whole  Commis- 
sion. This  was  true,  so  far  as  leadership  in  its  activities 
was  concerned,  but  he  was  cordially  supported  by  Hugh  S. 
Thompson,  whom  President  Harrison  had  appointed  a  mem- 
ber at  the  same  time,  and  later  by  John  R.  Proctor,  who  was 
added  to  the  Commission  in  December,  1893. 

Of  these  two  associates  Roosevelt  always  spoke  in  the 
highest  terms.    In  his  *  American  Ideals '  he  says : 

"I  was  myself  a  Republican  from  the  North.  Messrs. 
Thompson  and  Proctor  were  from  the  South,  and  were  both 
Democrats  who  had  served  in  the  Confederate  armies ;  and 
it  would  be  impossible  for  any  one  to  desire  as  associates, 
two  public  men  with  higher  ideals  of  duty,  or  more  resolute 
in  their  adherence  to  those  ideals." 

When  in  1869  Charles  W.  Eliot  became  President  of  Har- 
vard University  and  introduced  radical  changes,  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes  said  of  him  that  he  "  turned  the  whole  Uni- 
versity over  like  a  flapjack."  A  revolution,  no  less  com- 
plete, took  place  immediately  in  the  Commission  's  peaceful 
home.  Roosevelt  entered  upon  his  duties  on  May  13,  1889. 
Accompanied  by  Commissioner  Thompson,  he  went  almost 
immediately  to  New  York  and  conducted  an  investigation 
of  the  manner  in  which  the  Civil  Service  Law  was  adminis- 
tered in  the  Custom  House  there.  On  June  5,  the  Commis- 
sion published  a  report  in  which  it  declared  that  examina- 


CIVIL  SERVICE  COMMISSIONER  47 

tions  for  admissions  to  the  service,  as  conducted  by  the 
local  board,  were  characterized  by  '  *  great  laxity,  negligence 
and  fraud ;"  that  the  " members  of  the  board  openly  sneered 
at  and  ridiculed  the  law  which  they  were  supposed  to  en- 
force ; ' '  that  the  testimony  adduced  as  to  the  misconduct  of 
three  employees  was  conclusive  and  they  should  be  removed 
by  the  Collector ;  and  that  one  of  them  should  be  prosecuted 
by  the  U.  S.  District  Attorney  for  ' '  criminal  violation  of  the 
law."  This  action  was  so  radical  a  departure  from  the 
established  procedure  of  the  Commission  that  it  caused  a 
genuine  sensation.  It  was  the  first  formal  notice  that  the 
Civil  Service  Law  was  a  real  law  and  capable  of  enforce- 
ment by  the  courts  like  any  other  law.  From  New  York 
City,  the  Commissioners  visited  various  post  offices  in  New 
York  State,  finding  irregularities,  and  on  June  18  they 
started  on  a  tour  of  the  principal  Western  cities,  inquiring 
into  the  manner  in  which  the  law  was  enforced  in  the  Gov- 
ernment service  in  each.  On  the  eve  of  departure  Roose- 
velt  made  a  frank  statement  for  the  press  in  regard  to  the 
Commission's  ideas  and  purposes.  "We  have,"  he  said, 
"to  do  two  things.  One  is  to  make  the  officials  themselves 
understand  that  the  law  is  obligatory,  not  optional,  and  the 
other  is  to  get  the  same  idea  into  the  heads  of  the  people." 
The  tour  was  a  veritable  campaign  of  education,  for  full 
publicity  was  given  to  its  proceedings  and  discoveries,  and 
a  convincing  demonstration  was  made  that  the  full  power 
of  the  Commission  would  be  exerted  to  have  the  law  rigidly 
enforced  and  violators  of  it  punished.  Several  postmasters 
were  convicted  of  violations  and  were  removed,  and  a  great 
awakening  of  public  interest  was  caused. 

During  1889,  1890  and  1891,  Roosevelt  pushed  this  cam- 
paign forward  relentlessly,  without  regard  to  the  political 
character  of  the  persons  affected.  When  he  inquired  into 
the  methods  pursued  in  the  Baltimore  Post  Office,  he  became 
involved  in  a  controversy  with  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury, Charles  Foster,  and  John  Wanamaker,  the  Postmaster 
General,  both  of  President  Harrison's  Cabinet,  and  a  tre- 
mendous uproar  filled  the  entire  land.     The  wrath  of  the 


48  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

politicians  of  the  Kepublican  party,  which  had  been  steadily 
rising  since  Eoosevelt  began  his  campaign,  fairly  burst  into 
flame.  Mr.  Foster  and  Mr.  Wanamaker  protected  the  ac- 
cused officials  in  Baltimore,  whose  removal  was  demanded 
by  the  Commission,  and  in  doing  so  Mr.  Wanamaker  made 
assertions  that  Roosevelt,  speaking  for  the  Commission, 
declared  to  be  false.  An  investigation  was  conducted  by  a 
Committee  of  Congress,  and  Roosevelt's  position  was  sus- 
tained. He  had  not  only  assailed  members  of  the  Cabinet, 
who  were  his  superiors  in  the  Harrison  Administration, 
but  had  charged  one  of  them  with  seeking  to  condone  wrong- 
doing in  his  department,  and,  what  was  more,  had  proved 
his  charge.  This  treatment  of  a  man  who  was  not  only  a 
Cabinet  officer,  but  the  founder  of  the  famous  Bethany 
Sunday-School  in  Philadelphia,  shocked  the  sensibilities 
of  every  Republican  politician  in  the  country  and  the  outcry 
for  Roosevelt's  official  head  was  vociferous  and  insistent. 
Fury  was  added  to  the  demand  by  the  shrieks  of  joy  which 
came  from  the  Independent  or  Mugwump  press,  whose  edi- 
tors forgot  their  lack  of  faith  in  Roosevelt  because  of  his 
Blaine  support  and  hailed  him  as  the  nation 's  most  valiant 
reformer.  The  very  citadel  of  spoils  politics,  the  hitherto 
impregnable  fortress  that  had  existed  unshaken  since  it  was 
erected  on  the  foundation  laid  by  Andrew  Jackson,  was  tot- 
tering to  its  fall  under  the  assaults  of  this  audacious  and 
irrepressible  young  man.  In  Congress  and  in  the  party 
press,  in  all  quarters  where  politicians  gathered,  a  situation 
existed  like  that  described  by  Thackeray  in  his  "  White 
Squall": 

"Then  all  the  fleas  in  Jewry 
Jumped  up  and  bit  like  fury." 

The  biting  of  the  spoils  fleas  in  Congress  was  especially 
sharp.  An  investigation  of  the  Commission  was  proposed, 
and  eagerly  welcomed  by  Roosevelt,  who  met  his  accusers 
face  to  face  and  demolished  ruthlessly  all  their  assertions 
as  to  the  character  of  his  work.  He  demonstrated  that  the 
examinations  for  admission  to  the  service  which  the  Com- 
mission conducted  were  thoroughly  practical  and  designed 


CIVIL  SERVICE  COMMISSIONER  49 

especially  to  test  the  fitness  of  each  candidate  for  the  work 
that  he  was  to  do.  He  showed  that  in  each  instance  in  which 
fraud  or  misconduct  had  been  charged  against  employees 
ample  proof  had  been  adduced,  and  that  in  each  and  every 
instance  the  offender  had  been  recommended  for  punish- 
ment without  regard  to  his  political  affiliations.  The  good 
old  spoils  doctrine  of  asking  in  regard  to  a  rascal  before  in- 
flicting punishment,  "  Whose  rascal  is  he — ours  or  the  other 
party's!"  had  been  utterly  disregarded  by  him. 

Some  of  the  efforts  made  by  the  distracted  Congressmen 
to  save  their  cherished  system  reveal  how  complete  was 
their  misconception  of  the  man  with  whom  they  had  to  deal. 
In  the  first  annual  report  of  the  Commission,  under  date  of 
June  30,  1889,  occurs  this  passage,  evidently  penned  by 
Roosevelt : 

"The  object  of  the  law  is  to  give  to  the  average  American 
citizen  what  it  takes  away  from  the  professional  politician. 
How  little  this  object  is  understood  by  some  men  in  public 
life  may  be  gathered  from  recent  proposals  to  parcel  out 
all  the  offices  among  the  different  Congressional  districts 
according  to  the  political  faith  of  the  Congressmen  repre- 
senting them.  This  would,  of  course,  simply  mean  a  revival 
of  the  patronage  system,  with  an  added  touch  of  chaos.  It 
is  apparently  brought  forward  in  the  simple  faith  that  all 
that  is  needed  is  to  divide  the  offices  among  the  politicians 
of  both  parties  instead  of  among  those  of  only  one,  and 
ignores  the  very  common-sense  view,  which  insists  that  the 
offices  are  not  the  property  of  the  politicians  at  all,  whether 
of  one  party  or  of  the  other  or  of  both ;  but,  on  the  contrary, 
that  they  belong  to  the  people,  and  should  be  filled  only  with 
reference  to  the  needs  of  public  service.,, 

While  defending  himself  in  Congress,  Roosevelt  made 
frequent  addresses  in  various  parts  of  the  country,  explain- 
ing and  expounding  his  acts  and  policy,  and  contributed 
promptly  to  the  newspapers  various  replies  to  all  attacks 
of  consequence  made  through  their  columns.  Before  many 
months  had  passed  he  had  won  to  his  support  all  the  more 


50  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

reputable  and  influential  newspapers  of  the  country,  and 
had  secured  both  the  attention  and  confidence  of  the  great 
body  of  public  intelligence.  So  strong  was  public  opinion 
in  his  favor  that  even  the  irate  Congressmen  felt  compelled 
to  bow  to  it,  for  when  in  1890  a  proposal  was  made  to  repeal 
the  Pendleton  law  they  almost  unanimously  declined  to 
support  it. 

Heroic  efforts  were  made  by  the  editors  of  extreme  parti- 
san Republican  newspapers  to  find  language  adequate  to  the 
needs  of  the  occasion.  One  editor  in  a  single  article  spoke 
of  Eoosevelt,  as  "Mr.  Theossehoss  Roosevelt ;"  "Rosy 
Roosy;"  " Tintinnabulating  Ted;"  "Rollicking  Ranch- 
man ;"  "Scion  of  a  diluted  ancestry  who  has  slapped  Mr. 
Harrison  and  Mr.  Wanamaker;"  "Terrapin  Teddy ;"  "Fa- 
vorite-son-of-a-gun  of  reformer ; ' '  "  Descendant  of  the  way- 
back  Roosevelts  from  Rooseveltville,,,  and  a  "Jane  dandy." 

Other  partisan  editors,  less  gifted  in  the  use  of  vitupera- 
tive epithets,  assumed  to  believe  that  Roosevelt's  rigorous 
enforcement  of  the  law  would  have  the  beneficent  effect  of 
securing  its  repeal  by  showing  what  a  foolish  and  imprac- 
ticable statute  it  was.  One  of  these,  in  the  Albany 
Evening  Journal,  whose  publisher,  William  Barnes,  was 
destined  later  to  develop  into  one  of  Roosevelt's  most  bitter 
political  enemies,  was  particularly  strong  in  holding  this 
view.  '  *  Go  it,  Roosevelt, ' '  he  said.  ' '  If  any  man  can  repeal 
the  Pendleton  law  during  the  coming  four  years  his  name  is 
Teddy.  If  Teddy  Roosevelt  is  not  chained  down,  no  power 
under  heaven  can  prevent  the  repeal  of  the  law  before 
President  Harrison 's  term  shall  have  expired.  The  Amer- 
ican idea  of  party,  party  power  and  party  responsibility 
will  survive  the  Mugwump  attack  made  under  the  guise  of 
Civil  Service  reform." 

Another  editor,  in  the  New  York  Sun,  which  was  an  open 
defender  of  the  spoils  system,  said: 

"Mr.  Roosevelt  deserves  the  thanks  of  the  spoilsmen.  He 
is  proving  almost  every  week  that  the  Civil  Service  Law  is 
incapable  of  enforcement.    The  only  men  who  could  live  up 


CIVIL  SERVICE  COMMISSIONER  51 

to  it  are  the  Mugwumps,  and  they  do  not  appoint  to  office  or 
get  appointed. 

"Mr.  Roosevelt  and  his  brethren  in  belief  simply  postu- 
late a  state  of  things  which  does  not  exist.  They  assume 
that  the  American  people  are  poor  unfortunates  who  suffer 
from  the  spoils  system.  The  American  people  are  all  right 
and  they  know  it.  The  professors  of  Chinese  quackery 
cannot  persuade  them  that  they  are  ill.  Besides  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  belongs  to  them;  and  don't 
you  forget  it." 

'The  enraged  spoilsmen,  including  Senators  and  Repre- 
sentatives in  Congress,  descended  in  swarms  on  President 
Harrison  and  besought  him  to  remove  Roosevelt  for  the 
sake  of  party  and  country.  They  pointed  out  to  him  that 
he  had  ample  justification  for  such  a  course  in  Roosevelt's 
treatment  of  Mr.  Wanamaker,  which  was  virtually  an  attack 
on  the  President  himself.  They  started  a  report  that  the 
President  had  decided  on  his  removal  and  the  partisan  press 
warmly  commended  such  action.  When  such  action  failed 
to  be  taken,  they  began  to  express  pity,  even  contempt  for 
him  and  represented  him  as  in  a  state  of  great  irritation 
about  Roosevelt's  course  but  lacking  the  courage  to  get  rid 
of  him.  "Poor  Harrison!"  said  the  New  York  Sun.  "If 
he  has  erred  he  has  been  punished.  The  irrepressible,  bel- 
ligerent, and  enthusiastic  Roosevelt  has  made  him  suffer 
and  has  more  suffering  in  store  for  him." 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  feelings  of  the  President — 
and  there  is  little  doubt  that  he  had  no  idea  when  he  ap- 
pointed Roosevelt  that  he  would  prove  to  be  so  veritable  a 
bull  in  a  china  shop — he  refused  to  remove  him  and  stood 
by  him  firmly  till  the  end  of  his  term. 

When  Cleveland  succeeded  him  in  1893,  it  was  declared 
by  the  partisan  press  of  both  parties  that  he  would  not 
think  for  a  moment  of  retaining  Roosevelt.  The  most 
earnest  advocates  of  his  retention  were  the  civil  service 
reformers.  Carl  Schurz,  who  was  President  of  the  Civil 
Service  Reform  League,  was  especially  active,  as  the  fol- 


52  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

lowing  letter,  written  two  months  before  Cleveland's  inau- 
guration, shows: 

' '  Solitude,7 ' 
Pocantico  Hills,  Westchester, 
January  4,  1893. 
My  dear  Mr.  Roosevelt: 

I  trust  you  will  not  take  it  as  an  indiscretion  on  my  part 
that  I  communicated  to  Mr.  Cleveland  what  you  had  written 
me  about  calling  upon  him.  I  have  just  received  his  answer. 
He  writes:  "I  want  to  see  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  if  he  will 
indicate  when  and  where  he  can  meet  me  I  am  quite  sure 
I  can  suit  my  engagements  to  his  convenience. '  7 

I  take  this  to  indicate  that  Mr.  Cleveland  wishes  very 
much  to  see  you,  and  I  would  suggest  that  you  meet  him  as 
soon  as  possible.  You  might  communicate  with  him  directly 
in  order  to  agree  with  him  as  to  the  when  and  where.  Or, 
if  you  prefer  to  make  the  necessary  arrangement  through 
me,  I  am  perfectly  willing  to  serve  as  an  intermediary  and 
shall  do  so  with  pleasure. 

I  must  confess  that  the  tone  of  Mr.  Cleveland's  invita- 
tion to  you  gratifies  me  exceedingly.  It  is  a  very  good  sign 
of  his  disposition.  I  have  had  no  conversation  with  him 
upon  the  subject  and  do  not  know  whether  he  intends  to  ask 
you  to  remain  a  member  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission 
during  his  presidency.  That  part  of  his  letter  which  I  have 
quoted  seems  to  suggest  that  such  a  thing  is  possible.  If  he 
should  make  such  a  request  then  I  most  earnestly  hope — 
and  I  think  this  is  the  universal  feeling  of  the  civil  service 
reformers  throughout  the  country — that  you  will  not  a  mo- 
ment think  of  saying  no.  I  trust  you  will  consider  what  a 
great  work  you  can  do,  and  that  there  is  not  another  man 
in  the  country  who  can  do  it  as  well  as  you  can.  Your  con- 
tinuance in  your  position  at  Mr.  Cleveland's  request  would 
be  a  great  event,  and  in  itself  a  large  program  for  the 
next  four  years. 

Perhaps  we  may  meet  before  you  see  Mr.  Cleveland. 

Sincerely  yours, 

C.  Schurz. 


CIVIL  SERVICE  COMMISSIONER  53 

Cleveland  retained  Roosevelt  as  Commissioner  and  he 
remained  in  the  position  till  May  5,  1895,  when  he  resigned 
to  accept  the  position  of  Police  Commissioner  in  New  York 
City.  Cleveland,  like  Harrison,  stood  by  Roosevelt  when 
in  1894  he  assailed  John  G.  Carlisle,  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury, for  removing  subordinates  in  his  department  for  polit- 
ical reasons.  Roosevelt  says  in  his  'Autobiography':  "I 
was  treated  by  both  Presidents  with  the  utmost  considera- 
tion." 

When  he  resigned  in  1895,  the  classified  service  had  been 
extended  to  practically  the  entire  executive  forces  through- 
out the  United  States,  including  approximately  85,000 
places.  The  great  value  of  his  six  years  of  service,  how- 
ever, did  not  lie  in  the  increased  number  of  places  brought 
within  the  rules  but  in  the  revolution  that  he  had  accom- 
plished in  the  minds  of  both  the  politicians  and  the  people 
regarding  the  law  and  its  merits.  The  old  idea  that  it  was 
a  "fool  law,"  the  outcome  of  the  impracticable  dreams  of 
a  lot  of  "crank  reformers,' '  had  been  dispelled  forever. 
Its  character  as  a  real  law  with  beneficent  effects,  was  firmly 
established.  The  time-honored  theory  that  "to  the  victors 
belong  the  spoils,"  if  not  completely  destroyed,  had  re- 
ceived shocks  from  which  it  could  never  recover.  Not  only 
had  there  been  created  a  public  sentiment  in  favor  of  the 
law  and  its  enforcement,  but  against  such  features  of  the 
spoils  system  as  levying  assessments  upon  office-holders 
and  members  of  the  civil  service  and  the  slavish  employ- 
ment of  them  for  partisan  political  work, — against  these 
practises  a  vigilant  moral  sense  had  been  aroused  which 
made  it  not  only  difficult  but  dangerous  for  party  bosses  to 
continue  them,  lest  the  severe  penalties  of  the  law  be  in- 
curred. Whatever  violations  were  committed  subsequently, 
were  conducted  with  extreme  caution  and  in  lessening  num- 
ber as  time  advanced.  If  civil  service  reform  had  not  been 
completely  accomplished,  it  had  been  placed  upon  a  firm 
foundation  and  its  steady  progress  in  the  future  in  spite 
of  all  attempts  to  overthrow  it  had  been  assured. 

When  in  the  spring  of  1895,  it  was  announced  that  the 


54  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Mayor  of  New  York  had  offered  the  position  of  Police  Com- 
missioner to  Eoosevelt  and  the  latter  had  declared  his  pur- 
pose to  accept  it,  the  Washington  correspondent  of  the  New 
York  Sun,  a  newspaper  often  conspicuously  unfriendly  to 
Eoosevelt,  wrote,  under  date  of  April  23 :  "  What  will  be- 
come of  the  Civil  Service  Commission  when  Mr.  Eoosevelt 
leaves  it  can  only  be  conjectured.  He  has  been  the  only 
vital  force  in  the  Commission  since  it  came  into  existence, 
and  any  man  who  shall  take  the  place  after  him  must  show 
extraordinary  enthusiasm,  ability,  and  moral  principle,  or 
suffer  in  comparison. ' ' 

Eoosevelt 's  correspondence  during  the  six  years  that  he 
was  Civil  Service  Commissioner,  like  that  of  all  other  pe- 
riods of  his  career,  reveals  him  as  the  eager  and  indefati- 
gable reader  of  books  and  the  interested  companion  of 
writers  of  them.  An  essayist,  critic  and  author  in  whose 
work  he  took  keen  interest  was  Brander  Matthews,  and 
from  a  large  number  of  letters,  many  of  them  in  his  own 
hand,  that  Eoosevelt  wrote  to  him  at  this  time,  I  am  cour- 
teously permitted  by  Mr.  Matthews  to  make  a  few  citations 
which  I  have  chosen  as  showing  both  the  wide  range  of  his 
reading  and  the  irrepressible  play  of  his  humor. 

His  interest  in  Eevolutionary  War  history  was  disclosed 
in  many  letters,  notabiy  so  in  some  that  he  wrote  while  he 
was  President  to  Sir  George  Otto  Trevelyan,  author  of 
"The  American  Eevolution,'  from  which  I  shall  quote  in 
later  chapters  of  this  narrative.  Writing  to  Mr.  Matthews, 
on  May  7, 1893,  in  reference  to  a  work  on  the  Eevolutionary 
period  that  had  appeared  recently,  he  said : 

"  There  is  a  wealth  of  picturesque  incident  which  has 
never  been  utilized  in  the  fighting  between  Tarleton's  red 
dragoons,  Ferguson's  riflemen,  CornwalhVs  admirable 
grenadiers  of  the  line,  and  the  stolid,  well  drilled,  valiant 
Hessian  infantry  on  the  one  side,  and  on  the  other  the 
continental  line  troops  of  Greene  and  Wayne,  the  light 
horse  of  Harry  Lee,  the  homespun  militia-men,  and  the  wild 
riflemen  of  the  backwoods,  with  their  wolfskin  caps,  and 


CIVIL  SERVICE  COMMISSIONER  55 

their  hunting  tunics,  girded  in  with  bead-worked  belts; 
while  the  painted  Indian  tribes  add  yet  another  element.  It 
ought  to  be  written  up  purely  from  the  military  side,  by 
some  one  able  to  appreciate  brave  deeds  by  whomsoever 
done,  and  the  equal  valor  displayed  by  friend  and  foe." 

In  another  letter  to  Mr.  Matthews,  on  June  29,  1894,  he 
says  of  a  volume  of  essays  by  a  young  writer  who  was  win- 
ning his  way  to  fame : 

"Mr. "Blank  is  entirely  wrong  in  thinking  that  Shake- 
speare, Homer  and  Milton  are  not  permanent.  Of  course 
they  are ;  and  he  is  entirely  in  error  in  thinking  that  Shake- 
speare is  not  read,  in  the  aggregate,  during  a  term  of  years, 
more  than  any  ephemeral  author  of  the  day.  Of  course 
every  year  there  are  dozens  of  novels,  each  one  of  which 
will  have  many  more  readers  than  Shakespeare  will  have  in 
the  year ;  but  the  readers  only  stay  for  about  a  year  or  two, 
whereas  in  Shakespeare's  case  they  have  lasted,  and  will 
last,  quite  a  time!  I  think  that  Mr.  Blank's  ignorance, 
crudity  and  utter  lack  of  cultivation  make  him  entirely  unfit 
to  understand  the  effect  of  the  great  masters  of  thought 
upon  the  language  and  upon  literature.  Nevertheless,  in  his 
main  thought,  as  you  say,  he  is  entirely  right.  We  must 
strike  out  for  ourselves;  we  must  work  according  to  our 
own  ideas,  and  must  free  ourselves  from  the  shackles  of 
conventionality,  before  we  can  do  anything.  As  for  the  lit- 
erary center  of  the  country  being  New  York,  I  personally 
never  had  any  patience  with  the  talk  of  a  literary  center. 
I  don 't  eare  a  rap  whether  it  is  New  York,  Chicago,  or  any 
place  else,  so  long  as  the  work  is  done.  I  like  or  dislike 
pieces  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  and  the  Overland  Monthly 
because  of  what  they  contain,  not  because  of  one's  being 
published  in  San  Francisco  or  the  other  in  Boston.  I  don't 
like  Edgar  Fawcett  any  more  because  he  lives  in  New  York, 
nor  Joel  Chandler  Harris  any  the  less  because  he  lives  at 
Atlanta;  and  I  read  Mark  Twain  with  just  as  much  delight, 
but  with  no  more,  whether  he  resides  in  Connecticut  or  in 
Missouri," 


56  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

The  joyous  humor  of  Roosevelt  is  visible  in  the  following 
citations  from  the  letters  to  Mr.  Matthews : 

Washington,  Aug.  26,  1893:  "I  have  a  rather  good 
story  for  you.  Recently  a  sister  of  a  friend  of  mine  was 
at  a  dinner  in  London,  where  there  was  also  that  somewhat 
heavy  English  wit,  Comyns  Carr.  He  began  inveighing 
against  the  '  higher  education  of  women/  and  stated  that 
he  was  going  to  introduce  a  society  to  promote  their  lower 
education.  She  sweetly  asked  what  women  he  meant — - 
English,  French  or  American?  He  fixed  her  with  an  eye  of 
cold  disapproval,  and,  prancing  into  the  trap,  responded: 
*  I  should  begin  with  American  women ! '  to  which  she,  with 
a  merely  explanatory  air:  'Oh,  but  you  know,  Mr.  Carr, 
American  women  are  not  at  all  too  highly  educated  for 
American  menV  " 

Washington,  Dec.  9,  1894:  "When  you  see  your  friend 
Kipling  again  tell  him  that  his  'Walking  Delegate '  has  been 
used  as  a  tract  in  the  Senate.  Manderson,  of  Nebraska,  first 
saw  its  possibilities.  Do  you  know  him?  He  has  a  most 
gallant  record  in  the  Civil  War,  where  he  was  badly 
wounded ;  and  now  has  at  last  overthrown  the  populists  in 
his  State,  in  a  square  knock-down-and-drag-out  fight,  and 
is  going  to  leave  the  Senate,  as  he  finds  he  can't  afford  to 
stay  in  politics.  He  tried  the  article  on  Peffer,  who  is  a 
well-meaning,  pin-headed,  anarchistic  crank,  of  hirsute  and 
slab-sided  aspect;  it  didn't  do  Peffer  any  good — he  isn't 
that  kind — but  it  irritated  him,  and  so  it  pleased  Mander- 
son. Wolcott,  of  Colorado,  whom  you  met  here,  is  now 
going  to  try  it  on  Kyle,  of  South  Dakota.  Lodge  would 
like  to  use  it,  but  he  is  anathema  to  the  populists  anyhow, 
as  he  comes  from  Massachusetts  and  is  a  Harvard  man — 
a  record  that  would  taint  anything." 

Washington,  June  7, 1904 :  "I  simply  must  send  you  this 
choice  bit  of  wisdom  from  a  British  brother.  It  comes  in  a 
letter  of  Mrs.  Edith  Wharton's  to  young  Lodge: 

"  'I  sat  last  night  next  to  a  Mr.  F.,  Lord  S's  son,  who  had 
been  all  over  the  South  African  War  and  was  very  keen 
about  military  matters.    We  talked  about  Conan  Doyle's 


CIVIL  SERVICE  COMMISSIONER  57 

book,  and  then  I  asked  him  if  he  had  ever  read  Sir  George 
Trevelyan's  history  of  the  '  American  Eevolution.,  No,  he 
hadn't,  but  would  make  a  note  of  it.  Capital  book,  eh?  I 
said  the  descriptions  of  the  fights  were  wonderful;  that  I 
had  told  Sir  G.  T.  that  I  thought  his  '  Battle  of  Bunker 
HilP  was  the  best  battle  picture  I  knew  and  he  had  an- 
swered that  Lord  Wolseley  had  told  him  the  same  thing. 

"Mr.  F.  (keenly  interested).  'Oh,  really!  I  must  read 
that.    Trevelyan's  an  army  man  himself,  I  supposed 

"Me.    'No,  I  think  not.    You  know  he  was ' 

"Mr.  F.  'Oh,  of  course.  Out  there  as  a  correspondent, 
I  suppose.'  "   !   !   ! 

"Is  not  this  really  too  good  to  be  true?" 


CHAPTER  VIII 
POLICE  COMMISSIONER 

With  the  entrance  of  Roosevelt  upon  his  service  as  Police 
Commissioner  in  New  York  City,  in  the  spring  of  1895, 
there  began  between  him  and  myself  a  close  personal  friend- 
ship which  continued  unbroken  throughout  his  career,  grow- 
ing steadily  in  mutual  confidence  and  affection  with  time. 
The  present  narrative  from  this  point  onward  will  be  writ- 
ten in  the  light  which  this  intimacy  threw  upon  his  motives 
and  character,  and  its  statements  will  be  illuminated  and 
corroborated  by  citations  from  confidential  letters  written 
by  him  both  to  myself  and  to  other  persons,  and  by  authentic 
anecdotes  and  episodes  which  have  hitherto  either  not  been 
made  public  or  given  publication  in  inaccurate  form. 

Kipling  once  said  of  New  York  City,  as  the  result  of  his 
observations  during  several  visits,  that  it  had  a  gov- 
ernment of  the  worst  elements  of  the  population  tempered 
by  occasional  insurrections  of  respectable  citizens.  An  in- 
surrection of  this  kind  occurred  in  November,  1894,  when  a 
reform  Mayor,  William  L.  Strong,  was  chosen  on  a  non- 
partisan ticket.  The  uprising  of  righteous  indignation  had 
been  caused  by  revelations  of  shameful  misconduct  on  the 
part  of  the  Tammany  government,  especially  in  the  Police 
Department,  and  in  the  care  of  the  city's  streets.  Mayor 
Strong  at  first  asked  Roosevelt  to  accept  the  office  of  Street 
Cleaning  Commissioner  but  he,  feeling  that  he  had  no  spe- 
cial fitness  for  it,  declined.  The  Mayor  then  appointed  him 
a  Police  Commissioner  in  a  Board  of  four  members,  he  to 
be  the  President  of  the  Board.  As  this  was  a  position  in 
the  line  of  good  municipal  government  to  which  he  had 
devoted  himself  while  in  the  Legislature,  he  accepted  gladly 
and  with  the  distinct  understanding  that  he  should  admin- 

58 


POLICE  COMMISSIONER  59 

ister  the  affairs  of  the  department  with  entire  disregard 
of  partisan  politics  and  solely  as  a  good  citizen  interested 
in  promoting  the  welfare  of  good  citizens. 

The  task  before  him  was  not  a  light  one.  For  many  years, 
in  fact  from  the  very  beginning  of  its  organization,  the 
Police  Department  had  been  subjected  to  political  influences 
of  the  most  demoralizing  sort.  Its  powers  of  administra- 
tion were  vested  in  a  bi-partisan  board,  composed  of  two 
members  of  each  political  party,  selected  by  the  party 
bosses  for  the  position.  They  divided  both  the  spoils  of 
the  department  and  the  appointments  to  the  force.  When 
Roosevelt  took  office  there  was  a  regular  tariff  for  appoint- 
ments and  promotions,  and  these  could  be  obtained  only 
by  its  payment.  The  entire  force  was  permeated  with  cor- 
ruption in  every  department  of  activity.  A  very  large 
revenue  was  collected  by  the  force  from  vice  and  crime  and 
the  unlawful  sale  of  liquor,  and  this  was  divided  among 
the  higher  officials  of  the  force  and  the  political  leaders. 
In  fact,  the  entire  Department  was  organized  for  the  pur- 
pose of  exercising  a  licensing  power,  outside  of  the  law, 
which  was  far  more  valuable  in  pecuniary  results  than  the 
license  laws  of  the  city  themselves.  As  both  party  organi- 
zations shared  in  these  illicit  gains,  to  attack  the  system 
was  to  assail  both  and  to  challenge  the  furious  wrath  and 
bitter  hostility  of  both. 

This  was  a  fight  after  Roosevelt's  own  heart.  It  was  in 
essence  the  counterpart  of  his  fight  in  the  Legislature  and 
his  subsequent  fight  in  the  Civil  Service  Commission — a 
fight  against  political  criminals  and  lawbreakers,  corrupt  \ 
methods  in  politics  and  corrupt  politicians,  wherever  found  ' 
and  without  regard  to  party  names  or  affiliations.  He  be- 
gan the  fight  at  once,  using  in  it  the  weapons  he  had  em- 
ployed in  its  predecessors,  full  publicity,  strict  enforcement 
of  law,  and  utter  disregard  of  partisan  political  considera- 
tions. Trials  of  members  of  the  force  on  various  charges 
of  neglect  or  misconduct,  which  had  previously  been  con- 
ducted in  secret,  were  conducted  before  the  full  Board  in 
public.     Appointments  and  promotions  were  made  after 


60  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

examinations  and  on  merit  and  fitness  alone.  Neither  the 
payment  of  money  nor  the  word  of  a  political  boss  was  any 
longer  sufficient  to  "get  a  man  on  the  force,' '  or  to  secure 
his  promotion  in  its  service. 

One  of  the  chief  sources  of  blackmail  by  the  police,  in 
fact,  the  fundamental  source,  was  the  law  requiring  liquor 
saloons  to  be  closed  on  Sunday.  This  law  was  in  1895  the 
bulwark  of  the  most  stupendous  system  of  political  black- 
mail any  modern  city  has  known.  The  largest  saloons  were 
owned  by  the  great  breweries,  and  these  paid  blackmail  in 
large  sums  to  the  party  bosses  as  the  price  of  immunity 
from  police  interference  with  Sunday  side-door  selling. 
The  small  saloons,  operated  by  their  owners,  were  left  to 
the  police  to  blackmail  as  they  chose.  This  state  of  affairs 
was  well  known,  but  all  efforts  to  put  an  end  to  it  by  so 
amending  the  law  as  to  permit  the  sale  of  liquor  during 
certain  hours  on  Sunday  were  defeated  in  deference  to  the 
religious  sentiment  of  the  State,  and  were  not  supported 
by  more  than  a  small  portion  of  the  religious  elements  of 
the  city  itself.  It  was  held  to  be  a  "compromise  with  evil'' 
to  legalize  any  degree  of  selling  on  Sunday.  In  fact,  it 
was  held,  perhaps  not  openly  but  tacitly,  that  illegal  selling 
through  side-doors  on  Sunday  was  preferable  to  open  sell- 
ing by  permission  of  law. 

If  police  blackmail  had  been  confined  to  Sunday  liquor- 
selling,  the  evil  would  have  been  serious  enough,  but  this 
was  not  the  case.  From  blackmailing  the  illegal  liquor- 
dealer  the  police  turned  naturally  for  additional  revenue 
to  all  other  forms  of  illegal  industry, — vice,  gambling,  crime 
of  all  kinds,  pedlers,  merchants  who  wished  to  make  for- 
bidden use  of  sidewalks  and  streets,  and  to  every  practise 
or  proceeding  that  depended  upon  police  favor.  The  reve- 
nue from  these  sources  ran  up  into  the  millions,  and  the 
politicians  of  both  parties  were  sharers  of  it. 

When,  therefore,  Roosevelt  declared  his  intention  to  en- 
force the  Sunday-closing  law  rigorously,  the  outcry  from  all 
political  quarters  was  tremendous.  The  politicians  and  the 
newspapers  that  they  were  able  to  control  were  as  furious 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT,  POLICE  COMMISSIONER,  1895 


POLICE  COMMISSIONER  61 

in  their  wrath  as  their  kind  had  been  when  Eoosevelt  began 
to  enforce  the  Civil  Service  law.  They  declared  that  the 
attempt  was  pure  foolishness,  that  the  law  was  obsolete, 
a  mere  "blue  law,"  and  was  never  intended  to  be  enforced 
anyway.  A  Tammany  spokesman  said,  "We  believe  the 
law  should  be  enforced,  but  with  intelligence  and  discrimi- 
nation," to  which  Eoosevelt  retorted:  "That  is  a  good  deal 
like  believing  in  truthful  mendacity.' '  To  another  objector 
who  advocated  less  rigor,  he  replied:  "You  cannot  half 
obey  the  law."  To  another:  "I  am  enforcing  honestly  a 
law  that  hitherto  has  been  enforced  dishonestly."  It  was 
predicted  that  the  proceeding  was  useless  because  it  was 
not  possible  to  enforce  the  law,  but  for  several  months  it 
was  enforced  with  beneficial  results,  as  the  records  of  crime 
and  disorder  showed.  At  the  end  of  that  period  a  magis- 
trate was  discovered  who  was  able  to  decide  that  under  the 
law  a  drink  could  be  had  with  a  meal  and  that  a  sandwich 
or  a  pretzel  constituted  a  meal,  and  Sunday  selling  was 
partially  resumed;  but  the  main  object,  the  stopping  of 
blackmail,  had  been  largely  attained.  Although  Sunday- 
selling  through  side-doors  of  saloons  was  gradually  re- 
sumed, it  was  done  more  furtively  than  before  and  never 
again  attained  anything  approaching  its  former  dimen- 
sions. 

At  the  outset  of  his  police  administration  Roosevelt  had 
what  seemed  to  be  the  cordial  support  of  his  three  asso- 
ciates in  the  Board.  They  professed  full  agreement  with 
him,  and  he  accepted  their  professions  in  good  faith,  be- 
lieving them  to  be  as  sincere  as  he  was  himself.  They  con- 
tinued to  work  in  harmony  with  him  for  several  months, 
but  at  the  end  of  that  period  two  of  them,  yielding  to  the 
demands  of  the  political  organizations  to  which  they  owed 
their  selection  for  their  positions,  broke  away  and  sought 
to  defeat  his  purposes  by  causing  a  permanent  deadlock  in 
the  Board.  This  was  the  method  the  political  bosses,  who 
found  themselves  powerless  to  control  Roosevelt's  action, 
or  to  persuade  the  Mayor  to  attempt  to  control  it,  resorted 
to  as  the  only  means  of  defeating  his  policy  and  saving  their 


62  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

illicit  profits  from  total  annihilation.  They  had  tried  in 
various  other  ways  to  get  rid  of  him.  One  was  a  proposal 
for  the  Legislature  to  pass  a  law  abolishing  the  City  Police 
Board  and  creating  a  State  police  force  with  a  head  ap- 
pointed by  the  Governor.  This  was  defeated  by  an  over- 
whelming popular  protest.  They  subsequently  succeeded 
in  getting  the  Civil  Service  law  impaired,  under  the  guise 
of  amendments  which  "took  the  starch  out  of  it."  Roose- 
velt  says  in  his  i Autobiography':  "They  attempted  to 
seduce  or  frighten  us  by  every  species  of  intrigue  and  ca- 
jolery, of  promise  of  political  reward  and  threat  of  polit- 
ical punishment.' ' 

I  had  intimate  personal  knowledge  on  this  point  for  I 
was  closely  associated  with  Roosevelt  during  the  entire 
period  of  his  police  service.  The  Evening  Post,  of  which  I 
was  at  the  time  a  subordinate  editor,  was  cordially  support- 
ing his  policy  and  I  was  in  almost  daily  confidential  confer- 
ence with  him.  Having  as  a  journalist  of  many  years'  ex- 
perience in  the  devious  ways  of  New  York  politicians, 
acquired  an  exact  knowledge  of  many  of  them,  I  had  warned 
Roosevelt  when  he  entered  upon  his  duties  to  be  on  his 
guard  against  one  of  his  fellow  commissioners  who  was  in 
the  Board  as  the  representative  of  a  small  and  particularly 
vicious  political  organization.  In  accordance  with  an  inva- 
riable and  incurable  tendency — which  he  was  never  able  to 
overcome — he  persisted  in  placing  full  confidence  in  this 
man,  simply  because  the  man  professed  full  devotion  to 
him.  "He  may  be,  as  you  say,"  he  replied  to  my  repeated 
warnings,  "a  tricky  politician,  but  I  am  sure  that  he  is 
loyal  to  me."  To  this  I  could  only  say,  as  I  did  many 
times:  "He  is  a  snake  in  the  grass,  and  sooner  or  later 
he  will  smite  you." 

It  was  this  member  that  the  enraged  politicians  selected 
as  their  first  agent  for  the  undermining  and  paralyzing  of 
Roosevelt's  policy.  The  man  was  a  political  Schemer  by 
nature,  possessing  a  certain  order  of  low  cunning,  and  cov- 
ering his  designs  with  plausible  professions  of  virtuous 
convictions.    He  was  frequently  present  at  the  conferences 


POLICE  COMMISSIONER  63 

with  Roosevelt  and  myself  and  always  expressed  accord 
with  us.  On  one  occasion  when  the  three  of  us  had  been  din- 
ing together,  he  accompanied  me  toward  my  home  after 
we  had  separated  from  Roosevelt.  As  soon  as  we  were 
alone,  he  said:  "You  have  great  influence  with  Roosevelt. 
I  wish  you  would  stop  him  from  talking  so  much  in  the 
newspapers.  He  talks,  talks,  talks  all  the  time.  Scarcely 
a  day  passes  that  there  is  not  something  from  him  in  the 
papers  about  what  he  is  doing  and  the  Police  Board  is 
doing,  and  the  public  is  getting  tired  of  it.  It  injures  our 
work." 

I  laughed  and  said:  "Stop  Roosevelt  talking?  Why, 
you  would  kill  him.  He  has  to  talk.  The  peculiarity  about 
him  is  that  he  has  what  is  essentially  a  boy's  mind.  What 
he  thinks  he  says  at  once,  thinks  aloud.  It  is  his  distin- 
guishing characteristic,  and  I  don't  know  as  he  will  ever 
outgrow  it.  But  with  it  he  has  great  qualities  which  make 
him  an  invaluable  public  servant — inflexible  honesty,  abso- 
lute fearlessness,  and  devotion  to  good  government  which 
amounts  to  religion.  We  must  let  him  work  in  his  own  way 
for  nobody  can  induce  him  to  change  it.  Furthermore,  he 
is  talking  for  a  purpose.  He  wishes  the  public  to  know 
what  the  Police  Board  is  doing  so  that  it  will  have  popular 
support.' ' 

The  commissioner  said  nothing  further  and  we  parted 
rather  coldly.  About  noon  of  the  following  day,  Roosevelt 
called  me  on  the  telephone  and  asked  me  to  lunch  with  him. 
As  soon  as  we  were  seated  at  a  narrow  table  he  leaned  for- 
ward, bringing  his  face  close  to  mine,  and  with  appalling 
directness  said:  "P came  into  my  office  this  morn- 
ing and  said :  l  You  think  Bishop  is  a  friend  of  yours,  don 't 
you  ? '  '  Yes, '  I  replied.  i  Well,  you  know  what  he  said  about 
you  last  night?  He  said  you  had  a  boy's  mind  and  it  might 
never  be  developed. '  ' ' 

Roosevelt's  eye-glasses  were  within  three  inches  of  my 
face  and  his  eyes  were  looking  straight  into  mine.  Know- 
ing my  man,  I  did  not  flinch.  "Roosevelt,  I  did  say  that. 
Did  he  tell  you  what  else  I  said? ' '    ' ' No,  that  is  what  I  want 


64  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

to  hear. ' }  When  I  had  told  him,  he  brought  his  fist  down 
on  the  table  with  a  bang,  exclaiming:  "By  George,  I  knew 
it!"  "There,  Roosevelt,"  said  I,  "is  your  snake  in  the 
grass,  of  which  I  warned  you — the  meanest  of  mean  liars, 
who  tells  half  the  truth.' '  ' 

I  relate  this  incident  fully  because  of  the  light  it  throws 
upon  a  dominating  element  in  Roosevelt's  character — its 
unflinching  directness.     How  many  men  in  like  situation 

would  have  acted  as  he  did  %    P surely  did  not  suspect 

such  a  proceeding.  His  hope  was  to  put  an  end  to  the  pub- 
licity which  Roosevelt  was  systematically  giving  to  the 
Police  Board's  work  for  the  purpose  of  securing  popular 
support  and  thus  making  it  both  difficult  and  dangerous  for 
the  politicians  to  stop  it. 

When  the  scheme  failed,  this  commissioner  threw  off  all 
disguise  and  became  an  open  opponent  of  the  Roosevelt 
policy.  He  was  soon  afterwards  joined  by  a  second  member 
who  succumbed  to  tlje  pressure  of  the  Republican  boss,  and 
the  two  established  a  permanent  deadlock  in  the  Board  by 
refusing  to  attend  its  meetings.  The  conduct  of  the  first 
revolting  commissioner  became  so  notoriously  bad  that  the 
Mayor  preferred  charges  against  him  and  after  public 
hearings  on  the  same,  recommended  his  removal  by  the 
Governor.  The  Governor,  who  was  the  man  who  had  origi- 
nated the  proposal  to  "take  the  starch  out"  of  the  Civil 
Service  law,  declined  to  approve  the  Mayor's  recommenda- 
tion. 

While  the  deadlock  paralyzed  to  considerable  extent  fur- 
ther progress  of  Roosevelt's  policy,  it  did  not  undo  the 
very  important  results  which  had  been  achieved.  Not  only 
had  the  practise  of  blackmail  been  to  a  great  extent  ban- 
ished permanently  from  the  force  but  there  had  been  cre- 
ated throughout  its  members  a  distinct  morale  which  had 
been  almost  totally  lacking  when  he  entered  upon  his  duties. 
This  had  been  accomplished  not  only  by  making  appoint- 
ments and  promotions  on  merit  and  fitness  but  by  prompt 
recognition  in  all  cases  of  individual  service  which  displayed 
courage  and  devotion  in  the  performance  of  duty.    Every 


POLICE  COMMISSIONER  65 

man  in  the  force  had  become  convinced  that  faithful  per- 
formance of  duty  was  certain  to  receive  quick  recognition 
and  full  reward — that  promotion  was  sure  along  that  line, 
and  that  it  could  be  obtained  in  no  other  way.  The  mem- 
bers of  the  force  discovered  that  the  Eoosevelt  policy  was 
securing  for  them  what  they  had  not  formerly  possessed, — 
the  respect  of  the  public,  and  this  knowledge  gave  them  the 
most  powerful  of  all  incentives  to  upright  conduct, — a  feel- 
ing of  self-respect.  When  he  resigned  from  the  Board  in 
April,  1897,  Eoosevelt  left  in  the  Department  a  force  that 
had  to  a  large  extent  undergone  a  moral  transformation. 
It  had  received  a  large  transfusion  of  members  who  had 
come  into  it  under  honorable  conditions,  free  from  all  de- 
basing characteristics,  and  who  owed  their  presence  to  their 
personal  merits  and  not  to  the  favor  of  bosses  and  not  to 
the  payment  of  money.  Not  all  the  old  evils  had  been  eradi- 
cated, for  the  evil  results  of  years  of  corrupt  management 
could  only  be  completely  removed  by  the  abolition  of  the 
force,  but  a  new  standard  had  been  set  which  was  destined 
to  endure.  Although  under  a  partial  reversion  to  the  old 
order  of  control  which  followed  his  exit,  some  of  the  former 
evils  were  restored,  the  force  never  reverted  to  the  dis- 
graceful condition  in  which  he  found  it.  Appointments  and 
promotions  were  never  again  made  on  the  basis  of  boss 
favor  and  cash  payment  alone,  but  mainly  on  merit,  and 
the  levying  of  blackmail  as  a  general  police  practise  was 
never  resumed. 

A  clear  statement  of  Roosevelt's  method  of  dealing  with 
members  of  the  force  appears  in  a  letter  which  he  wrote, 
on  January  10, 1898,  while  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy, 
to  John  McCullagh  on  his  appointment  to  the  position  of 
Chief  of  Police.  After  expressing  his  delight  at  the  pro- 
motion, he  said  : 

"Now,  Chief,  I  want  you  to  let  me  say  a  word  to  you 
merely  as  a  man  who  has  backed  you  and  been  your  friend. 
You  have  drawn  one  of  the  big  prizes;  and  in  my  opinion 
you  have  fairly  won  it  by  courage,  ability  and  good  con- 


66  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

duct.  The  Chief  of  the  Police  of  Greater  New  York  is  the 
foremost  police  officer  in  the  entire  world,  and  he  is  one 
of  the  six  or  eight  most  important  men  in  New  York  itself. 
Yon  have  reached  the  pinnacle.  Your  place  is  assured. 
You  will  leave  a  name  and  a  great  reputation  to  your  chil- 
dren. Now,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  place  of  great  tempta- 
tion,— political,  and  worse  than  political,  temptation.  All 
kinds  of  chances  to  go  crooked  without  much  risk  of  detec- 
tion will  offer  themselves.  I  have  the  utmost  confidence  in 
you.  I  feel  that  in  the  future,  as  during  my  own  two  years 
of  service,  your  conduct  will  amply  and  -over  and  over  jus- 
tify the  attitude  your  friends  took  on  your  behalf.  But 
I  do  want  you  to  realize  most  seriously  that  you  must  not 
ever  make  the  least  slip,  for  if  you  make  even  a  small  one 
it  will  give  men  a  hold  upon  you.  Both  Byrnes  and  Conlin 
had  very  great  chances  before  them,  but  they  could  not 
stand  the  strain;  only  a  man  of  indomitable  will,  of  great 
power,  and  a  resolute  purpose  for  integrity,  can.  I  am  very 
sure  you  are  such  a  man,  and  I  confidently  look  forward 
to  the  event  proving  my  belief  to  be  right,  and  that  every 
man  of  us  will  be  able  to  be  proud  of  you  and  proud  of  the 
officers  under  you." 

An  ultimate  result,  not  by  any  means  the  least  beneficial 
of  the  Eoosevelt  policy,  was  the  abolition  a  few  years  later 
of  the  bi-partisan  board  method  of  control  and  a  substitu- 
tion of  control  by  a  single  commissioner  responsible  solely 
to  the  Mayor.  This  reform  was  due  in  large  measure  to  the 
demonstration  which  had  been  made  during  Eoosevelt 's 
term  of  the  evils  of  bi-partisan  management  through  a 
board  of  four  members.  It  was  a  demonstration  of  the  evils 
of  divided  responsibility,  rather  than  of  bi-partisan  con- 
trol, for  his  board  had  not  divided  on  partisan  lines,  one 
of  his  opposing  members  being  a  Democrat  and  the  other  a 
Eepublican.  His  faithful  and  loyal  supporter,  Avery  D. 
Andrews,  was  a  Democrat,  a  graduate  of  West  Point,  and 
an  honest  and  fearless  man  who  proved  himself  as  inhos- 
pitable to  partisan  political  influences  as  Eoosevelt  himself. 


POLICE  COMMISSIONER  67 

While  Police  Commissioner,  Roosevelt  continued  and 
deepened  the  interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  poorer  classes 
of  the  Community  which  he  had  developed  while  member 
of  the  Legislature.  As  President  of  the  Police  Board  he 
was  also  a  member  of  the  Health  Board,  and  in  the  latter 
capacity  he  was  brought  into  close  relations  with  conditions 
of  life  in  the  tenement  house  districts.  He  had  made  per- 
sonal visits  to  these  districts  as  a  member  of  a  legislative 
investigating  committee  about  ten  years  earlier  and  the 
impressions  which  had  then  been  made  upon  his  mind  as  to 
the  crying  need  of  reform  and  betterment  remained  un- 
impaired. These  impressions  had  been  strengthened  by 
the  revelations  made  in  a  very  remarkable  book  by  Jacob 
A.  Riis,  entitled  "How  the  Other  Half  Lives,"  which  was 
published  in  1890.  He  formed  an  intimate  friendship  with 
Eiis,  which  lasted  throughout  the  latter  's  life,  and  spoke 
of  him  when  he  died  as  next  to  his  father  the  best  man  he 
had  ever  known,  saying  of  his  book  that  it  had  been  to  him 
both  an  enlightenment  and  an  inspiration  for  which  he 
could  never  be  too  grateful.  In  company  with  Riis  he 
visited  the  tenement  house  regions,  often  at  midnight,  in 
order  to  see  for  himself  just  what  conditions  were,  just 
what  the  police  were  doing  in  regard  to  them,  and  what  the 
Health  Department  was  doing  to  regulate  and  improve 
them.  That  a  fresh  and  powerful  impetus  was  imparted 
to  his  interest  in  the  social  welfare  of  the  masses  by  these 
visits  is  recorded  in  his  'Autobiography': 

"My  experience  in  the  Police  Department  taught  me 
that  not  a  few  of  the  worst  tenement  houses  were  owned  by 
wealthy  individuals  who  hired  the  best  and  most  expensive 
lawyers  to  persuade  the  courts  that  it  was  'unconstitu- 
tional' to  insist  on  the  betterment  of  conditions.  These 
business  men  and  lawyers  were  very  adroit  in  using  a  word 
with  fine  and  noble  associations  to  cloak  their  opposition  to 
vitally  necessary  movements  for  industrial  fair  play  and 
decency.  They  made  it  evident  that  they  valued  the  Con- 
stitution, not  as  a  help  to  righteousness,  but  as  a  means  for 
thwarting  movements  against  unrighteousness.    After  my 


68  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

experience  with  them  I  became  more  set  than  ever  in  my 
distrust  of  those  men,  whether  business  men  or  lawyers, 
judges,  legislators,  or  executive  officers,  who  seek  to  make 
of  the  Constitution  a  fetich  for  the  prevention  of  the  work 
of  social  reform,  for  the  prevention  of  work  in  the  interest 
of  those  men,  women,  and  children  on  whose  behalf  we 
should  be  at  liberty  to  employ  freely  every  governmental 
agency.' ' 

A  striking  tribute  to  Boosevelt's  character  and  public 
usefulness  was  paid  to  him  at  the  time  of  his  departure 
from  the  Police  Department  by  Mr.  E.  L.  Godkin,  Editor 
of  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  who  had  been  on  many 
occasions  one  of  his  most  severe  critics.  When  it  was  an- 
nounced that  Eoosevelt  had  been  nominated  by  President 
McKinley  as  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Mr.  Godkin 
wrote  him  an  earnest  letter  of  protest,  in  which  he  said : 

"I  have  a  concern,  as  the  Quakers  say,  to  put  on  record 
my  earnest  belief  that  in  New  York  you  are  doing  the 
greatest  work  of  which  any  American  to-day  is  capable, 
and  exhibiting  to  the  young  men  of  the  country  the  spec- 
tacle of  a  very  important  office  administered  by  a  man  of 
high  character  in  the  most  efficient  way  amid  a  thousand 
difficulties.  As  a  lesson  in  politics  I  cannot  think  of  any- 
thing more  instructive. ' ' 

That  he  firmly  believed  during  his  service  as  police  Com- 
missioner that  he  would  never  again  hold  a  public  office,  I 
have  personal  knowledge.  Toward  the  end  of  that  service 
he  said  to  me  during  a  long  and  intimate  conversation  rela- 
tive to  the  difficulties  and  obstacles  he  was  encountering: 
i  '  This  is  the  last  office  I  shall  ever  hold.  I  have  offended 
so  many  powerful  interests  and  so  many  powerful  politi- 
cians that  no  political  preferment  in  future  will  be  possible 
for  me.  All  the  liquor  interests,  including  the  great  brew- 
eries, and  all  the  party  bosses  will  oppose  me,  and  no  politi- 
cal party  will  venture  to  defy  an  opposition  so  fatal  as  that 
is.    I  realized  this  when  I  began  my  fight  for  the  enforce- 


POLICE  COMMISSIONER  69 

ment  of  the  Sunday  law  and  against  police  bribery  and  cor- 
ruption, but  it  was  the  only  course  I  could  honestly  pursue 
and  I  am  willing  to  abide  by  the  consequences. ' 9 

An  interchange  of  views  between  Roosevelt  and  Presi- 
dent Cleveland  in  regard  to  the  importance  of  strict  main- 
tenance of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  which  took  place  while 
Eoosevelt  was  Police  Commissioner,  may  be  noted  here. 
When  in  December,  1895,  Cleveland  startled  the  country 
with  his  famous  Venezuela  message,  Roosevelt  wrote  of  his 
action:  "It  would  be  difficult  to  overestimate  the  good 
done  in  this  country  by  the  vigorous  course  taken  by  the 
National  Executive  and  legislature  in  this  matter.' '  In 
recognition,  President  Cleveland  wrote  to  Roosevelt,  on 
March  26,  1896: 

"I  note  with  pleasure  what  you  write  in  regard  to  the 
Venezuela  affair  and  thank  you  for  it.  It  has  taken  a  little 
time  and  thought  for  the  good  people  to  understand  our 
position  in  the  matter  but  as  usual  they  are  coming  around. 

"It  seems  to  me  that  you  and  I  have  both  been  a  little 
misunderstood  lately. ' ' 


CHAPTEE  IX 
ASSISTANT  SECRETARY  OF  THE  NAVY 

Soon  after  the  election  of  McKinley  to  the  Presidency 
in  1896,  friends  of  Roosevelt  began  to  urge  upon  the  new 
President  the  desirability  of  appointing  him  to  some  posi- 
tion in  his  administration,  preferably  in  the  Navy  Depart- 
ment, because  of  his  well-known  interest  in  naval  matters. 
Chief  among  these  friends  was  Senator  H.  C.  Lodge,  who 
was  as  earnest  an  advocate  of  the  building  of  an  efficient 
navy  as  Roosevelt  himself.  Senator  Lodge  made  a  visit  to 
McKinley,  at  the  latter 's  home  in  Canton,  Ohio,  in  Decem- 
ber, 1896,  and  had  an  intimate  conversation  with  the  Presi- 
dent-elect which  he  set  forth  in  a  confidential  letter  to 
Roosevelt  under  date  of  December  2.  This  letter  is  of  his- 
torical interest  as  revealing  McKinley 's  attitude  of  mind 
not  only  toward  Roosevelt,  but  toward  the  most  pressing 
question  that  was  to  confront  the  new  President  on  taking 
office — the  situation  in  Cuba. 

"He  asked  me  about  Cuba,"  wrote  Senator  Lodge,  "and 
we  went  over  the  whole  of  that  very  perplexing  question. 
It  is  very  much  on  his  mind  and  I  found  he  had  given  it  a 
great  deal  of  thought.  He  very  naturally  does  not  want  to 
be  obliged  to  go  to  war  as  soon  as  he  comes  in,  for,  of 
course,  his  great  ambition  is  to  restore  business  and  bring 
back  good  times,  and  he  dislikes  the  idea  of  such  interrup- 
tion. He  would  like  the  crisis  to  come  this  winter  and  be 
settled  one  way  or  the  other  before  he  takes  up  the  reins, 
but  I  was  greatly  pleased  to  see  how  thoroughly  he  appre- 
ciates the  momentous  character  of  the  question.' ' 

Striking  evidence  of  the  reputation  for  "driving  force" 
which  Roosevelt  had  earned  for  himself  by  his  conduct  in 

70 


ASSISTANT  SECRETARY  OF  THE  NAVY  71 

public  office,  is  furnished  in  this  passage  from  the  Senator's 
letter : 

"He  (McKinley)  spoke  of  you  with  great  regard  for  your 
character  and  your  services  and  he  would  like  to  have  you 
in  Washington.  The  only  question  he  asked  me  was  this, 
which  I  give  you:  'I  hope  he  has  no  preconceived  notions 
which  he  would  wish  to  drive  through  the  moment  he  got 
in.'  I  replied  that  he  need  not  give  himself  the  slightest 
uneasiness  on  that  score,  that  I  knew  your  views  about  the 
Navy,  and  they  were  only  to  push  on  the  policies  which  had 
been  in  operation  for  the  last  two  or  three  administra- 
tions." 

The  possibility  mentioned  by  the  President-elect,  that 
Eoosevelt  might  prove  too  strong  a  man  for  the  place,  was 
urged  by  opponents  of  his  appointment  in  Washington 
when  he  was  proposed  for  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy, 
after  McKinley  had  been  inaugurated  and  his  Cabinet  an- 
nounced. A  letter  from  Senator  Lodge  at  Washington  to 
Roosevelt,  under  date  of  March  8,  1897,  gives  interesting 
information  as  to  the  high  character  of  his  supporters  and 
the  arguments  used  in  opposition  to  his  selection: 

"I  have  seen  Long  (Secretary  of  the  Navy)  and  he  is 
entirely  open-minded — has  not  yet  taken  the  question  up — 
will  not  for  some  little  time — says  that  McKinley  will  ap- 
point, but  he  supposes  he  will  be  consulted.  He  spoke  in 
the  highest  terms  of  you.  The  only  thing  resembling  criti- 
cism was  this  queer  one:  ' Roosevelt  has  the  character, 
standing,  ability  and  reputation  to  entitle  him  to  be  a  Cabi- 
net Minister — is  not  this  too  small  for  him?' 

"The  hitch,  if  there  be  one,  is  not  with  Long  but  with 
the  White  House.  Whether  there  is  any  real  resistance  I 
cannot  tell,  and  absolutely  the  only  thing  I  can  hear  adverse 
is  that  there  is  a  fear  that  you  will  want  to  fight  somebody 
at  once. 

"You  have  enough  friends  earnest  for  you  to  make  a 
Secretary  of  State.  John  Hay  has  written  and  spoken  and 
urged  in  the  most  earnest  way  at  all  opportunities.    Hanna 


72  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

is  entirely  friendly  and  wants  you  here.  Piatt  is  not  lift- 
ing a  finger  against  you.  I  saw  Bliss  (Cornelius  N.,  Secre- 
tary of  the  Interior)  this  morning.  He  spoke  of  you  in  the 
warmest  terms  and  in  the  most  affectionate  way — said  you 
were  just  the  man.  Hobart ,{ Vice-President)  after  adjourn- 
ment to-day,  came  up  to  me  and  said:  'You  are,  I  know, 
interested  in  Eoosevelt.  He  is  a  splendid  fellow — I  think 
everything  of  him — just  the  sort  of  man  we  ought  to  get. 
What  can  I  do?'  He  said  he  had  an  appointment  with  the 
President  this  afternoon  and  would  urge  you  then  upon 
him. 

"I  believe  we  are  coming  out  all  right.  In  any  event, 
you  have,  I  think,  a  right  to  be  proud  of  such  support  as 
that  I  have  described  and  you  have  not  raised  a  finger  and 
it  has  all  come  voluntarily.  All  I  have  done  is  to  plan 
and  direct  it  a  little.  * ' 

President  McKinley  sent  Roosevelt's  name  to  the  Senate 
on  April  6,  1897,  and  the  nomination  was  confirmed  on 
April  8.    He  assumed  the  duties  of  the  office  on  April  19. 

On  the  day  of  the  Senate's  confirmation  of  the  nomina- 
tion, the  Washington  Post,  which  had  bitterly  opposed 
Roosevelt  while  Civil  Service  Commissioner,  made  him  the 
subject  of  an  editorial  article  in  which  it  said  that  it  was 
"by  no  means  sure"  that  his  appointment  was  a  " matter 
of  regret,"  and  that  while  "of  course  he  will  bring  with 
him  to  Washington  all  that  machinery  of  disturbance  and 
upheaval  which  is  as  much  a  part  of  his  entourage  as  the 
very  air  he  breathes,  who  knows  that  the  service  will  not 
be  a  little  better  for  a  little  dislocation  and  readjustment?" 
Of  Roosevelt's  qualities,  the  editor  added: 

"He  is  inspired  by  a  passionate  hatred  of  meanness,  hum- 
bug, and  cowardice.  He  cherishes  an  equally  passionate 
love  of  candor,  bravery  and  devotion.  He  is  a  fighter,  a 
man  of  indomitable  pluck  and  energy,  a  potent  and  force- 
ful factor  in  any  equation  into  which  he  may  be  introduced. 
A  field  of  immeasurable  usefulness  awaits  him — will  he 
find  it?" 


From  a  photograph  by  Van  der  Weyde 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT,  ASSISTANT  SECRETARY  OF  THE  NAVY,  1897 


ASSISTANT  SECRETARY  OF  THE  NAVY  73 

As  soon  as  Eoosevelt  had  familiarized  himself  with  the 
detail  work  of  his  office  he  began  a  series  of  visits  to  the 
various  navy-yards  and  to  vessels  of  the  fleet.  Early  in 
May  he  took  a  trip  on  a  torpedo-boat  which  he  had  been  in- 
specting because  of  a  slight  injury  caused  by  an  accident, 
and  made  an  official  report  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
which  marked  a  new  departure  in  documents  of  that  kind, 
for  instead  of  being  a  dry,  formal  record  of  an  accident,  it 
contained  decided  views  as  to  the  qualities  and  dispositions 
of  the  men  who  should  command  naval  vessels,  and 
especially  torpedo-boats.  After  saying  that  no  practical 
damage  had  been  caused,  he  added : 

"  Boats  so  delicate,  which,  to  be  handled  effectively  must 
be  handled  with  great  daring,  necessarily  run  great  risks, 
and  their  commanders  must,  of  course,  realize  that  a  pre- 
requisite to  successfully  handling  them  is  the  willingness 
to  run  such  risks.  That  they  will  observe  proper  precau- 
tions is,  of  course,  required,  but  it  is  more  important  that 
our  officers  should  handle  these  boats  with  dash  and  daring 
than  that  the  boats  should  be  kept  unscratched.  There 
must  be  developed  in  the  men  who  handle  them  that  mixture 
of  skill  and  daring  which  can  only  be  attained  if  the  boats 
are  habitually  used  under  circumstances  which  imply  the 
risk  of  an  accident.  The  business  of  a  naval  officer  is  one 
which,  above  all  others,  needs  daring  and  decision  and  if 
he  must  err  on  either  side  the  nation  can  best  afford  to 
have  him  err  on  the  side  of  too  much  daring  rather  than  too 
much  caution.' ' 

This  report  was  hailed  by  the  press  with  expressions  of 
delight  as  revealing  a  new  spirit  in  the  Navy  Department. 
One  newspaper  correspondent  said  it  had  ' '  snap  and  vigor 
that  made  it  read  more  like  a  page  out  of  one  of  Mr.  Eoose- 
velt 's  books  than  the  ordinary  red-tape  document.' '  An 
editor  hoped  that  the  report  would  prove  to  be  the  first  of 
a  series  of  papers  setting  forth  his  views  of  naval  men  and 
things  in  general,  because  "we  have  been  running  along 
in  a  groove  for  altogether  too  many  years. ' ' 


74  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

This  hope  was  soon  realized,  and  the  interest  which  the 
report  had  aroused  in  naval  matters  was  greatly  stimulated 
a  few  weeks  later  when  Roosevelt  delivered  a  carefully 
prepared  address  before  the  Naval  War  College,  at  New- 
port, R.  I.,  at  the  opening  exercises  on  June  2,  1897.  This 
address  is  so  notable  as  the  first  elaborate  expression  of 
Roosevelt's  views  on  the  subject  of  national  preparedness 
that  somewhat  liberal  quotation  from  it  is  desirable  in 
order  to  show  the  lifelong  consistency  of  his  course  on  this 
question.  He  had  first  given  expression  to  those  views  in 
his  history  of  "The  Naval  War  of  1812,"  in  1882,  and  had 
repeated  them  in  his  "Life  of  Benton,"  in  1887,  and  in  his 
condensed  history  of  the  war  of  1812,  which  he  wrote  in 
1896  for  the  English  Naval  History,  but  in  each  of  these 
instances  he  had  written  briefly  and  in  general  terms.  The 
Naval  War  College  address  was  clearly  the  result  of  several 
years  of  serious  thought  and  study  of  the  subject.  Read 
in  the  light  of  his  virtually  continuous  advocacy  of  the  same 
subject  during  the  years  which  intervened  between  our  war 
with  Spain  and  the  outbreak  of  the  great  European  War  in 
1914,  it  is  found  to  contain  all  the  principal  ideas  which  he 
expounded  with  such  tireless  energy  during  that  period,  and 
especially  when  he  foresaw  that  Germany's  conduct  was 
certain  to  force  the  United  States  into  the  war.  A  few  cita- 
tions will  demonstrate  the  accuracy  of  this  statement: 

"A  century  has  passed  since  Washington  wrote  'To  be 
prepared  for  war  is  the  most  effectual  means  to  promote 
peace.'  We  pay  to  this  maxim  the  lip-loyalty  we  so  often 
pay  to  Washington's  words ;  but  it  has  never  sunk  deep  into 
our  hearts.  Indeed  of  late  years  many  persons  have  re- 
fused it  even  the  poor  tribute  of  lip-loyalty,  and  prate  about 
the  iniquity  of  war  as  if  somehow  that  was  a  justification 
for  refusing  to  take  the  steps  which  alone  can  in  the  long 
run  prevent  war  or  avert  the  dreadful  disasters  it  brings 
in  its  train. ' ' 


H^Tn  this  country  there  is  not  the  slightest  danger  of  an 
o,yer-development  of  warlike  spirit,  and  there  never  has 


ASSISTANT  SECRETARY  OF  THE  NAVY  75 

been  any  such  danger.  In  all  our  history  there  has  never 
been  a  time  when  preparedness  for  war  was  any  menace  to 
peace.  On  the  contrary,  again  and  again  we  have  owed 
peace  to  the  fact  that  we  were  prepared  for  war;  and  in 
the  only  contest  which  we  have  had  with  a  European  power 
since  the  Eevolution,  the  war  of  1812,  the  struggle  and  all 
its  attendant  disasters,  were  due  solely  to  the  fact  that  we 
were  not  prepared  to  face,  and  were  not  ready  instantly 
to  resent,  an  attack  upon  our  honor  and  interest ;  while  the 
glorious  triumphs  at  sea  which  redeemed  that  war  were 
due  to  the  few  preparations  which  we  had  actually  made.,, 

"The  danger  is  of  precisely  the  opposite  character.  If 
we  forget  that  in  the  last  resort  we  can  only  secure  peace 
by  being  ready  and  willing  to  fight  for  it,  we  may  some  day 
have  bitter  cause  to  realize  that  a  rich  nation  which  is  sloth- 
ful, timid,  or  unwieldy  is  an  easy  prey  for  any  people  which 
still  retains  those  most  valuable  of  all  qualities,  the  soldier- 
ly virtues." 

"Preparation  for  war  is  the  surest  guarantee  for  peace. 
Arbitration  is  an  excellent  thing,  but  ultimately  those  who 
wish  to  see  this  country  at  peace  with  foreign  nations  will 
be  wise  if  they  place  reliance  upon  a  first-class  fleet  of  first- 
class  battle-ships  rather  than  on  any  arbitration  treaty 
which  the  wit  of  man  can  devise. ' ' 

"A  really  great  people,  proud  and  high-spirited,  would 
face  all  the  disasters  of  war  rather  than  purchase  that  base 
prosperity  which  is  bought  at  the  price  of  national  honor.' ' 

"Cowardice  in  a  race,  as  in  an  individual,  is  the  unpar- 
donable sin,  and  a  wilful  failure  to  prepare  for  danger  may 
in  its  effects  be  as  bad  as  cowardice.  The  timid  man  who 
cannot  fight  and  the  selfish,  shortsighted  or  foolish  man 
who  will  not  take  the  steps  that  will  enable  him  to  fight, 
stand  on  almost  the  same  plane.' ' 

"As  yet  no  nation  can  hold  its  place  in  the  world  or  can 
do  any  work  really  worth  doing  unless  it  stands  ready  to 


76  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

guard  its  rights  with  an  armed  hand.  That  orderly  liberty 
which  is  both  the  foundation  and  the  capstone  of  our  civi- 
lization can  be  gained  and  kept  only  by  men  who  are  willing 
to  fight  for  an  ideal;  who  hold  high  the  love  of  honor,  love~ 
of  faith,  love  of  flag,  and  love  of  country.' ' 

"It  has  always  been  true,  and  in  this  age  it  is  more  than 
ever  true,  that  it  is  too  late  to  prepare  for  war  when  the 
time  of  peace  has  passed.' ' 

"Tame  submission  to  foreign  aggression  of  any  kind  is 
a  mean  and  unworthy  thing;  but  it  is  even  meaner  and 
more  unworthy  to  bluster  first,  and  then  submit  or  else 
refuse  to  make  those  preparations  which  can  alone  obviate 
the  necessity  for  submission." 

"In  public  as  in  private  life  a  bold  front  tends  to  insure 
peace  and  not  strife.  If  we  possess  a  formidable  navy, 
small  is  the  chance  indeed  that  we  shall  ever  be  dragged 
into  a  war  to  uphold  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  If  we  do  not 
possess  such  a  navy,  war  may  be  forced  on  us  at  any  Time." 

"Diplomacy  is  utterly  useless  where  there  is  no  force 
behind  it;  the  diplomat  is  the  servant,  not  the  master,  of 
the  soldier." 

"No  nation  should  ever  wage  war  wantonly,  but  no  nation 
should  ever  avoid  it  at  the  cost  of  the  loss  of  national  honor. 
A  nation  should  never  fight  unless  forced  to ;  but  it  should 
always  be  ready  to  fight." 

"Every  feat  of  heroism  makes  us  forever  indebted  to  the 
man  who  performed  it.  All  daring  and  courage,  all  iron 
endurance  of  misfortune,  all  devotion  to  the  ideal  of  honor 
and  of  the  glory  of  the  flag,  make  for  a  finer  and  nobler 
type  of  manhood." 

"If  ever  we  had  to  meet  defeat  at  the  hands  of  a  foreign 
foe,  or  had  to  submit  tamely  to  wrong  or  insult,  every  man 
among  us  worthy  of  the  name  of  American  would  feel  dis- 
honored and  debased." 


ASSISTANT  SECRETARY  OF  THE  NAVY  77 

"We  ask  for  a  great  navy,  partly  because  we  think  that 
the  possession  of  such  a  navy  is  the  surest  guarantee  of 
peace,  and  partly  because  we  feel  that  no  national  life  is 
wortlT  having  if  the  nation  is  not  willing,  when  the  need 
shall  arise,  to  stake  everything  on  the  supreme  arbitrament 
of  war,  and  to  pour  out  its  blood,  its  treasure,  and  tears 
like  water  rather  than  submit  to  the  loss  of  honor  and 
renown. ' ' 

Published  in  full  in  the  principal  newspapers  of  the  land, 
the  address  attracted  wide  attention  and  aroused  animated 
discussion.  It  was  universally  recognized  as  sounding  a 
new  note  in  the  conduct  of  national  affairs.  Nothing  similar 
to  it  had  been  heard  in  the  deliverances  of  other  public 
men.  It  was  the  voice  of  Roosevelt,  and  of  Roosevelt  alone, 
and  it  stirred  the  country  like  the  sound  of  a  trumpet. 
There  had  been  many  addresses  by  naval  officials  at  the 
War  College,  but  never  before  had  an  Assistant  Secretary 
of  the  Navy  or  any  other  navy  official  made  an  address  like 
this.  What  did  it  mean?  To  an  apparent  majority  of  the 
people,  if  the  comments  of  the  newspapers  were  an  accu- 
rate reflection  of  popular  sentiment,  it  meant  a  welcome 
change.  With  few  exceptions,  the  leading  journals  of  the 
country  expressed  warm  approval  of  the  address.  The 
New  York  Sun,  seldom  friendly  to  Roosevelt,  called  it  a 
"manly,  patriotic,  intelligent  and  convincing  appeal  to 
American  sentiment  in  behalf  of  the  national  honor,  and 
for  the  preservation  of  the  national  strength  by  means 
requisite  for  self-defense  and  vigorous  aggressive  resist- 
ance to  efforts  to  interfere  with  our  progress  and  natural 
dominion. ' '  The  New  York  Herald  said :  1 t  The  current  of 
this  fine  address  is  filled  with  a  flow  of  splendid  patriotism, 
from  its  opening  sentence  to  its  close,  and  its  careful  read- 
ing can  scarcely  fail  to  inspire  the  youth  of  America  with 
the  same  lofty  spirit  of  devotion  to  our  country's  honor, 
glory  and  prosperity  that  actuated  its  utterance  by  the 
speaker/ '  The  Washington  Post,  dropping  its  uniformly 
captious  attitude  toward  Roosevelt,  declared  that  in  his 


78  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

address  he  had  "honored  both  himself  and  the  country," 
and  exclaimed:  "Well  done,  nobly  spoken!  Theodore 
Koosevelt,  yon  have  found  your  proper  place  at  last — all 
hail ! ' '  From  Maine  to  California,  the  general  verdict  was 
expressed  in  similar  terms. 

That  Koosevelt  was  endowed,  in  a  really  marvelous  de- 
gree, with  the  gift  of  vision  his  correspondence  indubitably 
shows.  He  saw  clearly  what  men  would  do  because  he  had 
accurate  knowledge  of  and  calm  judgment  upon  what  men 
had  done.  He  saw  clearly  into  the  motives  and  actions  of 
men  and  nations  because  he  had  mastered  their  history  and 
could  gage  their  conduct  in  the  future  by  that  of  the  past. 
He  had  read  human  history,  not  for  the  purpose  of 
strengthening  his  prejudices,  but  of  informing  his  mind, 
and  from  fulness  of  mind  and  matured  conviction  he  spoke. 

When  Eoosevelt  entered  upon  his  duties  as  Assistant 
Secretary  of  the  Navy,  trouble  with  Spain  over  conditions 
in  Cuba  was  visibly  impending,  and  the  possibility  of  war 
was  foremost  in  his  mind  when  he  made  his  Naval  War 
College  address.  That  he  was  keeping  close  watch  upon 
developments  in  ottief'cjo^^ies^especially  in  Germany,  is 
shown  by  his  letters.  In  his  correspondence  during  the 
months  immediately  following  his  assumption  of  office, 
reference  to  ultimate  trouble  with  Germany  is  of  frequent 
occurrence.  On  JtugdLt  %  iJ£6%»'Vl  iBtfeTTo  Captain  B.  H. 
McCalla,  U.  S.  N.,  he  wrote:  "I  entirely  agree  with  you 
that  Germany  is  the  power  with  which  we  may  very  pos- 
sibly have  ultimately  to  come  into  hostile  contact.  How  I 
wish  our  people  would  wake  up  to  the  need  for  a  big  navy !" 

A  few  days  later,  August  11,  he  wrote  a  long  letter,  re- 
markable for  the  intimate  knowledge  that  it  displayed  of 
conditions  in  European  countries,  to  Cecil  Arthur  Spring- 
Eice,  then  with  the  British  Legation  at  Berlin  and  afterward 
British  Ambassador  at  Washington.  In  it  he  said.  "As 
an  American  I  should  advocate — as  a  matter  of  fact  do 
advocate — keeping  our  navy  at  a  pitch  that  will  enable  us  to 
interfere  promptly  if  Germany  ventures  to  touch  a  foot  of 
American  soil.    I  would  not  go  into  the  abstract  rights  or 


ASSISTANT  SECRETARY  OF  THE  NAVY  79 

wrongs  of  it;  I  would  simply  say  that  we  did  not  intend  to 
have  Germans  on  the  continent,  excepting  as  immigrants, 
whose  children  would  become  Americans  of  one  sort  or 
another,  and  if  Germany  intended  to  extend  her  empire  here 
she  would  have  to  whip  us  first.' ' 

The  same  idea  was  repeated  in  a  letter  to  General  James 
H.  Wilson  on  August  23,  1897:  "We  cannot  rival  England 
as  a  naval  power  .  .  .  but  I  do  think  we  ought  to  stand 
ahead  of  Germany.' ' 

In  two  letters,  written  early  in  1898,  he  predicted  trouble 
with  Germany  in  South  America  if  the  Kaiser  should  at- 
tempt to  acquire  territory  there.  In  one,  February  5,  1898, 
addressed  to  F.  C.  Moore,  New  York  City,  he  wrote:  "Of 
all  the  nations  of  Europe  it  seems  to  me  Germany  is  by  far 
the  most  hostile  to  us.  With  Germany  under  the  Kaiser 
we  may  at  any  time  have  trouble  if  she  seeks  to  acquire 
territory  in  South  America." 

In  another,  addressed  to  Charles  A.  Moore,  New  York 
City,  February  14,  1898,  the  prediction  was  repeated.  The 
literal  accuracy  of  the  prophecy  was  confirmed  in  1902, 
when  the  Kaiser  attempted  to  acquire  territory  in  Vene 
zuela  and  was  prevented  by  the  prompt  action  of  Roosevelt, 
as  President,  in  serving  notice  upon  him  that  unless  he  de- 
sistecLthe  American  fleet  under  Admiral  Dewey  would  sail 
for  Venezuela  and  oppose  his  project  by  force  of  arms. 

Writing  again  to  F.  C.  Moore,  on  February  9,  1898,  he 
gave  this  comprehensive  statement  of  his  views  in  regard 
to  an  American  foreign  policy: 

"I  should  myself  like  to  shape  our  foreign  policy  with  a 
purpose  ultimately  of  driving  off  this  continent  every  Euro- 
pean power.  I  would  begin  with  Spain,  and  in  the  end 
would  take  all  other  European  nations,  including  England. 
It  is  even  more  important  to  prevent  any  new  nation  from 
getting  a  foothold.  Germany  as  a  republic  would  very 
possibly  be  a  friendly  nation,  but  under  the  present  des- 
potism she  is  much  more-  bitterly  and  outspokenly  hostile 
to  us  than  is  England. 


? 


80  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

"What  I  want  to  see  our  people  avoid  is  the  attitude 
taken  by  the  great  bulk  of  Americans  at  the  beginning  of 
this  century,  and  the  end  of  the  last,  when  the  mass  of  the 
Jeffersonians  put  the  interests  of  France  above  the  inter- 
est and  honor  of  America,  and  the  mass  of  the  Federalists 
did  the  same  thing  in  England.  I  am  not  hostile  to  any 
European  power  in  the  abstract.  I  am  simply  an  American 
first  and  last,  and  therefore  hostile  to  any  power  which 
wrongs  us.  If  Germany  wronged  us  I  would  fight  Ger- 
many; if  England,  I  would  fight  England.' ' 

It  should  be  said  in  regard  to  this  reference  to  England, 
that  after  what  he  considered  to  be  the  handsome  way  in 
which  England  acted  toward  the  United  States  during  the 
Spanish  War,  Roosevelt's  attitude  toward  that  country 
underwent  a  radical  change — a  change  that  was  strength- 
ened later  by  England's  course  in  the  war  with  Germany. 

The  most  striking  of  Roosevelt 's  predictions  at  this  time 
appears  in  his  letter  to  Mr.  Spring-Rice,  already  alluded 
to.  In  his  review  of  conditions  in  foreign  countries,  he 
paid  especial  attention  to  Russia,  a  country  which  Mr. 
Spring-Rice  had  recently  visited,  and  in  concluding  fore- 
shadowed, with  remarkable  accuracy,  twenty  years  in  ad- 
vance, the  revolution  of  1918 :  ~~^ — - 

"If  Russia  chooses  to  develop  purely  on  her  own  line 
and  to  resist  the  growth  of  liberalism,  then  she  may  put 
off  the  day  of  reckoning;  but  she  cannot  ultimately  avert 
it,  and  instead  of  occasionally  having  to  go  through  what 
Kansas  has  gone  through  with  the  Populists,  she  mil  some 
time  experience  a  red  terror  which  will  make  the  French 
Revolution  pale." 


These  predictions  in  regard  to  the  course  of  events  in 
foreign  countries,  interesting  as  they  are,  occupied  only 
casual  space  in  the  great  mass  of  correspondence  that 
Roosevelt  conducted  during  the  year  in  which  he  held  the 
office  of  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  His  dominating 
idea  during  the  early  part  of  that  period  was  the  condi- 


ASSISTANT  SECRETARY  OP  THE  NAVY  81 

tion  of  affairs  in  Cuba  and  the  imperative  necessity  of 
American  interference.  He  was  frankly  and  ardently  in 
favor  of  interference  in  Cuba  on  the  ground  of  humanity,- 
and,  after  the  blowing  up  of  the  Maine,  in  favor  of  war 
with  Spain  in  defense  of  the  national  honor.  He  was  vir- 
tually alone  in  the  McKinley  Administration  in  advocating 
this  policy.  So  completely  was  this  the  case  that  he  might 
have  said  of  his  function  in  the  Administration  during  the 
year  which  preceded  the  war  with  Spain  what  Socrates  in 
his  'Apology'  said  of  his  function  in  the  Athenian  state: 
' '  The  state  is  exactly  like  a  powerful  high-bred  steed,  which 
is  sluggish  by  reason  of  his  very  size,  and  so  needs  a  gadfly 
to  wake  him  up.  And  as  such  a  gadfly  does  God  seem  to 
have  fastened  me  upon  the  state ;,  wherefore,  besetting  you 
everywhere  the  whole  day  long,  I  arouse  and  stir  up  and  re- 
proach each  one  of  you." 

In  his  'Autobiography'  Eoosevelt  calls  the  war  with 
Spain  "The  War  of  America  the  Unready."  It  might  with 
equal  truth  be  called  "The  War  of  McKinley  the  Unwill- 
ing," for  he  and  his  official  associates  refused  to  engage  in 
it  till  refusal  was  no  longer  possible  without  dishonor. 
They  were  supported  in  this  course  by  Thomas  B.  Reed, 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  by  a  group 
of  Senators  under  the  leadership  of  the  Senate's  most 
powerful  member,  Eugene  Hale,  of  Maine.  Secretary  Long, 
Roosevelt's  superior  officer,  was  more  than  lukewarm  upon 
the  question  of  building  up  the  navy,  which  Roosevelt  con- 
sidered to  be  of  the  highest  importance.  Upon  all  these 
persons  Roosevelt  acted  as  the  persistent  and  irritating 
gadfly.  The  fu.ll  story  of  his  efforts  and  of  the  develop- 
ments of  this  interesting  period  stands  revealed  in  his 
correspondence.  .  ;* 

Roosevelt  had  been  an  earnest  and  persistent  advocate  of 
a  big  navy  for  ten. years  or  more  before  he  entered  the 
Navy  Department,  and  it  was  inevitable,  therefore,  that  in 
assuming  office  his  first  thought  should  be  in  that  direction. 
One  of  his  early  letters,  addressed  to  the  editor  of  the  New 
York  Sim,  August  16,  1897,  contains  this  passage:    "I  am 


82  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

rather  afraid  that  there  is  a  very  foolish  feeling  growing 
that  we  now  have  enough  of  a  navy.  It  would  be  horrible 
folly  to  stop  building  up  our  navy  now." 

Secretary  Long's  lukewarm  attitude  on  the  subject  was 
revealed  quite  early  in  their  official  intercourse,  and  on 
August  26,  1897,  Eoosevelt  mildly  expressed  his  regret  in 
a  letter  to  the  Secretary  who  was  away  on  a  vacation:  "I 
know  you  will  excuse  my  saying  that  I  can't  help  being 
sorry  you  have  reached  the  conclusion  that  we  are  not  to 
go  on  at  all  in  building  even,  say,  one  battleship  and  five 
torpedo-boats." 

A  letter  to  Senator  Lodge,  written  a  few  weeks  later, 
September  15,  1897,  reveals  the  fact  that  Eoosevelt  had 
brought  the  subject  to  the  President's  attention  and  secured 
the  overruling  of  the  Secretary.  This  letter  is  interesting 
also  for  the  glimpse  it  affords  of  McKinley's  personality: 

' '  The  President  has  returned  and  yesterday  I  went  driv- 
ing with  him.  Generally,  he  expressed  great  satisfaction 
with  what  I  had  done,  especially  during  the  last  seven  weeks 
that  I  have  been  in  charge  of  the  Department.  Of  course 
the  President  is  a  bit  of  a  jollier,  but  I  think  his  words  did 
represent  a  substratum  of  satisfaction. 

"  He  is  evidently  by  no  means  sure  that  we  shall  not  have 
trouble  with  Spain ;  and  though  he  wants  to  avoid  both,  yet 
I  think  he  could  be  depended  upon  to  deal  thoroughly  and 
well  with  any  difficulty  that  arises.  ...  I  told  him  that 
I  would  guarantee  that  the  Department  would  be  in  the 
best  possible  shape  that  our  means  would  permit  when  war 
began,  and  that,  as  he  knew,  I  myself  would  go  to  the  war. 
He  asked  me  what  Mrs.  Roosevelt  would  think  of  it,  and  I 
said  that  both  you  and  she  would  regret  it,  but  this  was  one 
case  where  I  would  consult  neither.  He  laughed  and  said 
that  he  would  do  all  he  could  to  guarantee  that  I  should 
have  the  opportunity  I  sought  if  war  by  any  chance  arose. 

"To  my  great  pleasure  he  also  told  me  that  he  intended 
we  should  go  on  building  up  the  Navy,  with  better  ships 
and  torpedo-boats,  and  that  he  did  not  think  the  Secretary 


ASSISTANT  SECRETARY  OF  THE  NAVY  83 

would  recommend  anything  he  (the  President)  did  not  ap- 
prove of." 

Two  efforts  were  made  by  Eoosevelt  in  the  latter  part  of 
September,  1897,  when  the  Cuban  situation  seemed  threat- 
ening, to  induce  Secretary  Long  to  take  decisive  action  of 
some  sort  in  the  direction  of  naval  preparedness.  On  Sep- 
tember 20  he  wrote  to  him  at  Hingham,  Mass.: 

"From  what  the  President  and  Judge  Day  (Secretary  A/flf 
of  State)  say  it  would  seem  that  advices  from  Spain  are 
not  altogether  satisfactory.  I  do  not  anticipate  any  trouble, 
but  if  there  is  we  should  have  warning  just  as  far  in  ad- 
vance as  the  President  will  permit,  and  should  be  ready 
to  take  the  initiative  at  once.  If  in  the  event  of  trouble  we 
wait  to  receive  the  attack  we  will  have  our  hands  full,  and 
the  greatest  panic  would  ensue,  but  if  we  move  with  the 
utmost  rapidity  with  our  main  force  on  Cuba,  say  under 
Admiral  Walker,  and  a  flying  squadron  under  Evans,  or 
some  such  man,  against  Spain  itself,  while  the  Asiatic 
squadron  operates  against  the  Philippines,  I  believe  the 
affair  would  not  present  a  very  great  difficulty.' ' 

And  on  September  30,  he  sent  a  long  and  formal  letter 
urging  the  steady  and  rapid  upbuilding  of  the  Navy,  and 
saying: 

"A  great  Navy  does  not  make  for  war  but  for  peace.  It 
is  the  cheapest  kind  of  insurance.  No  coast  fortifications 
can  really  protect  our  coasts ;  they  can  only  be  protected 
by  a  formidable  fighting  Navy. 

"I  believe  Congress  should  at  once  give  us  6  new  battle- 
ships, 6  large  cruisers,  and  75  torpedo-boats,  25  for  the 
Pacific  and  50  for  the  Atlantic.  I  believe  we  should  set 
about  building  all  these  craft  now,  and  that  each  one  should 
be,  if  possible,  the  most  formidable  of  its  kind  afloat." 

About  the  same  time  he  saw  the  President  again,  writing 
to  Senator  Lodge  on  September  21 :  *  ' '  The  President  has 
been  most  kind.    I  dined  with  him  Friday  evening,  and  yes- 


84  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

terday  he  sent  over  and  took  me  out  to  drive.  I  gave  him 
a  paper  showing  exactly  where  all  our  ships  are  and  I  also 
sketched  in  outline  what  I  thought  ought  to  be  done  if 
things  looked  menacing  about  Spain,  urging  the  necessity 
of  taking  an  immediate  and  prompt  initiative  if  we  wished 
to  avoid  the  chance  of  some  serious  trouble.' ' 

In  December  the  outlook  was  even  more  threatening  and, 
with  a  side  glance  still  on  Germany,  he  wrote  on  the  17th, 
to  Lieutenant-Commander  W.  W.  Kimball,  U.  S.  N.:  "I 
doubt  if  those  Spaniards  can  really  pacify  Cuba,  and  if  the 
insurrection  goes  on  much  longer  I  don't  see  how  we  can 
help  interfering.  Germany  is  the  power  with  whom  I  look 
forward  to  serious  difficulty;  but  oh,  how  bitterly  angry  I 
get  at  the  attitude  of  some  of  our  public  men  and  some  of 
our  publicists ! ' ' 

On  January  14, 1898,  Roosevelt  again  sent  a  formal  letter 
to  Secretary  Long,  giving  the  location  and  armament  of 
the  various  ships  of  the  Navy  at  the  moment,  and  fairly 
imploring  him  to  act : 

"I  feel  that  I  ought  to  bring  to  your  attention  the  very 
serious  consequences  to  the  Government  as  a  whole,  and 
especially  to  the  Navy  Department — upon  which  would  be 
visited  the  national  indignation — for  any  check,  no  matter 
how  little  the  Department  was  really  responsible  for  the 
check — if  we  should  drift  into  a  war  with  Spain  and  sud- 
denly find  ourselves  obliged  to  begin  it  without  prepara- 
tion, instead  of  having  at  least  a  month's  warning,  during 
which  we  could  actively  prepare  to  strike.  Some  prepara- 
tion can  and  should  be  undertaken  now  on  the  mere  chance 
of  having  to  strike. 

"  Certain  things  should  be  done  at  once  if  there  is  any 
reasonable  chance  of  trouble  with  Spain  during  the  next 
six  months.  For  instance,  the  disposition  of  the  fleet  on 
foreign  stations  should  be  radically  altered,  and  altered 
without  delay.  For  the  past  six  or  eight  months  we  have 
been  sending  small  cruisers  and  gunboats  off  to  various 
parts  of  the  world  with  a  total  disregard  of  the  fact  that 
in  the  event  of  war  this  would  be  the  worst  possible  policy 


ASSISTANT  SECRETARY  OF  THE  NAVY  85 

to  have  pursued.  ...  If  we  have  war  with  Spain  there 
will  be  immediate  need  for  every  gunboat  and  cruiser  that 
we  can  possibly  get  together  to  blockade  Cuba,  threaten  or 
take  the  less  protected  ports,  and  ferret  out  the  scores  of 
small  Spanish  cruisers  and  gunboats  which  form  practical- 
ly the  entire  Spanish  naval  force  around  the  island." 

On  February  15, 1898,  the  battleship  Maine  was  blown  up 
in  Havana  harbor,  and  on  the  following  day  Roosevelt 
wrote  to  a  friend:  " Being  a  Jingo,  as  I  am  writing  con- 
fidentially, I  will  say,  to  relieve  my  feelings,  that  I  would 
give  anything  if  President  McKinley  would  order  the  fleet 
to  Havana  to-morrow.  This  Cuban  business  ought  to  stop. 
The  Maine  was  sunk  by  an  act  of  dirty  treachery  on  the  part 
of  the  Spaniards,  I  believe ;  though  we  shall  never  find  out 
definitely,  and  officially  it  will  go  down  as  an  accident.' ' 

Secretary  Long  had  returned  to  Washington  and  was  on 
duty  when  the  Maine  explosion  occurred.  On  February  19, 
Roosevelt  addressed  a  formal  letter  to  him  which  was  the 
most  solemnly  earnest  of  the  series  of  prods  thus  far  ad- 
ministered to  him.  One  passage  which  I  have  placed  in 
italics  was  especially  significant  in  view  of  the  Secretary's 
well-known  attitude  toward  building  up  the  navy: 

"In  reference  to  our  conversation  of  yesterday,  and  to 
a  brief  conversation  which  I  had  with  Judge  Day  this  morn- 
ing before  you  came,  let  me  again  earnestly  urge  that  you 
advise  the  President  against  our  conducting  any  examina- 
tion in  conjunction  with  the  Spaniards  as  to  the  Mame's 
disaster.  I  myself  doubt  whether  it  will  be  possible  to  tell 
definitely  how  the  disaster  occurred  by  an  investigation, 
and  it  may  be  that  we  could  do  it  as  well  in  conjunction 
with  the  Spaniards  as  alone.  But  I  am  sure  we  could  never 
convince  the  people  at  large  of  this  fact. 

"There  is  another  subject  of  which  I  spoke  to  you  yes- 
terday, and  about  which  I  venture  to  remind  you.  This  is 
in  reference  to  additional  warships.  I  was  informed  that 
both  Speaker  Reed  and  Senator  Hale  had  stated  that  we 
should  cease  building  any  more  battleships,  in  view  of  the 


86  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

disaster  to  the  Maine.  I  cannot  believe  that  the  statement 
is  true,  for  of  course  such  an  attitude,  if  supported  by  the 
people,  would  mean  that  we  had  reached  the  last  pitch  of 
national  cowardice  and  baseness.  I  earnestly  wish  that  you 
could  see  your  way  clear  now,  without  waiting  a  day,  to 
send  in  a  special  message,  stating  that  in  view  of  the  disas- 
ter to  the  Mame  (and  perhaps  in  view  of  the  possible  needs 
of  this  country)  instead  of  recommending  one  battleship 
you  ask  for  two,  or  better  still,  that  four  battleships  be 
authorized  immediately  by  Congress." 

This  letter  evidently  alarmed  Secretary  Long,  for  a  few 
days  later,  on  February  25,  he  wrote  a  personal  note  to 
Eoosevelt  in  his  own  hand,  saying  he  should  be  absent  from 
the  Department  for  a  day's  quiet  rest,  directing  him  to  re- 
voke an  order  Eoosevelt  had  issued  in  regard  to  getting 
the  naval  vessels  ready  for  action,  and  adding:  "Do  not 
take  any  such  step  affecting  the  policy  of  the  Administra- 
tion without  consulting  the  President  or  me.  I  am  not  away 
from  town  and  my  intention  was  to  have  you  look  after  the 
routine  of  the  office  while  I  get  a  quiet  day  off.  I  write  to 
you  because  I  am  anxious  to  have  no  unnecessary  occasion 
for  a  sensation  in  the  papers. ' '  The  passage  which  I  have 
placed  in  italics  is  especially  significant. 

Writing  to  Henry  White,  then  Secretary  of  the  American 
Embassy  at  London,  on  March  9,  1898,  Eoosevelt  said: 
"Of  course  I  have  nothing  to  say  as  to  the  policy  of  the 
Government,  but  I  hope  this  incident  (Maine)  will  not  be 
treated  by  itself,  but  as  part  of  the  whole  Cuban  business. 
There  is  absolutely  but  one  possible  solution  of  a  perma- 
nent nature  to  that  affair,  and  that  is  Cuban  independence. 
The  sooner  we  make  up  our  minds  to  this  the  better.  If 
we  can  attain  our  object  peacefully,  of  course  we  should  try 
to  do  so ;  but  we  should  attain  it  one  way  or  the  other  any- 
how.'' 

When  the  news  arrived  of  the  sailing  of  the  Spanish 
torpedo  flotilla  from  the  Canaries  for  Porto  Eico,  on  March 


ASSISTANT  SECRETARY  OF  THE  NAVY  87 

15,  1898,  Roosevelt  went  at  once  to  the  President,  and,  as 
he  wrote  to  Captain  R.  D.  Evans  of  the  navy  on  the  follow- 
ing day,  told  him  that  "we  ought  to  treat  the  sailing  of  the 
flotilla  exactly  as  a  European  power  would  the  mobilizing 
of  a  hostile  army  on  its  frontier. ' '  He  did  not  confine  his 
exhortations  to  the  President,  but,  as  appears  from  the  sub- 
joined extract  from  a  letter  to  Brooks  Adams,  on  March  21, 
1898,  extended  them  to  the  Cabinet  as  well : 

"Personally,  I  feel  that  it  is  not  too  late  to  intervene  in 
Cuba.  "What  the  Administration  will  do  I  know  not.  In 
some  points  it  has  followed  too  closely  in  Cleveland's  foot- 
steps to  please  me,  excellently  though  it  has  done  on  the 
whole.  In  the  name  of  humanity  and  of  national  interest 
alike,  we  should  have  interfered  in  Cuba  two  years  ago,  a 
year  and  a  half  ago  last  April,  and  again  last  December.  The 
blood  of  the  Cubans,  the  blood  of  women  and  children  who 
have  perished  by  the  hundred  thousand  in  hideous  misery, 
lies  at  our  door ;  and  the  blood  of  the  murdered  men  of  the 
Maine  calls  not  for  indemnity  but  "for  the  full  measure  of 
atonement  which  can  only  come  by  driving  the  Spaniard 
from  the  New  World.  I  have  said  this  to  the  President 
before  his  Cabinet;  I  have  said  it  to  Judge  Day,  the  real 
head  of  the  State  Department;  and  to  my  own  Chief.  I 
cannot  say  it  publicly,  for  I  am  of  course  merely  a  minor 
official  in  the  Administration.  At  least,  however,  I  have 
borne  testimony  where  I  thought  it  would  do  good." 

The  response  that  he  received  was  clearly  not  encourag- 
ing, for  on  March  24  he  wrote  to  Captain  A.  T.  Mahan,  who 
was  a  cordial  sympathizer  in  his  efforts:  "I  think  I  told 
you  that  I  advised  the  President  and  the  Secretary  to  treat 
the  sailing  of  the  torpedo  flotilla  from  the  Canaries  for 
Porto  Rico  as  an  act  of  hostility.  I  have  repeated  the  ad- 
vice to-day.    I  do  not  think  it  will  be  regarded." 

His  inability  to  stir  the  Administration  to  action  was  both 
discouraging  and  depressing  to  him.  On  March  27,  he  re- 
ceived a  letter,  written  the  day  before,  from  William  Tudor, 


88  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

an  old  and  valued  friend  in  Boston,  in  which  the  writer 
said : 

"It  is  hard  to  credit  the  newspaper  reports  that  the 
Cabinet  by  a  large  majority  intend  to  pass  over  the  blow- 
ing up  of  the  Maine.  Those  of  us  who  are  not  speculating 
in  the  stock  market  believe  that  this  is  merely  put  forward 
by  the  Administration  to  gain  time. 

'  i  I  believe  that  the  blowing  up  of  the  Maine  with  the  con- 
nivance of  the  Spanish  authorities  cannot  be  passed  over. 
With  wholesale  murder  there  can  be  no  question  of  arbitra- 
tion. If  you  allow  Spain  to  get  her  torpedo  fleet  across  the 
Atlantic  the  Administration  will  be  responsible  for  the  loss 
of  more  ships.  The  first  act  of  war  was  the  blowing  up  of 
the  Maine;  the  second  is  the  sending  of  this  torpedo  fleet  to 
Porto  Eico.  Are  we  to  wait  until  more  of  our  ships  are  de- 
stroyed before  acting?  I  protest  against  this  peace-at-any- 
price  policy  of  the  Government,  which  does  not  represent 
the  views  of  a  tenth  of  the  American  people. ' ' 

To  this  Eoosevelt  responded  on  March  28:  "I  agree 
from  the  bottom  of  my  heart  with  all  you  say.  I  feel 
humiliated  and  ashamed.  Every  argument  you  advance  I 
have  personally  advanced  with  all  the  force  there  was  in 
me,  both  to  the  President  and  the  Cabinet;  and  in  vain." 

To  his  brother-in-law,  Captain  W.  S.  Cowles,  of  the  navy, 
he  wrote  in  similar  strain  on  March  29 : 

"I  am  utterly  disgusted  at  the  present  outlook  in  foreign 
relations.  I  can  only  hope  that  the  Senate,  under  the 
leadership  of  men  like  Lodge,  will  rise  to  the  needs  of  the 
hour  and  insist  upon  immediate  independence  for  Cuba  and 
armeii~mtervention  on  our  part.  Nothing  less  than  this 
will  avail.  Shilly  shallying  and  half  measures  at  this  time 
will  merely  render  us  contemptible  in  the  eyes  of  the  world ; 
and  what  is  infinitely  more  important,  in  our  own  eyes  too. 
Personally  I  cannot  understand  how  the  bulk  of  our  people 
can  tolerate  the  hideous  infamy  that  has  attended  the  last 
two  years  of  Spanish  rule  in  Cuba ;  and  still  more  how  they 
can  tolerate  the  treacherous  destruction  of  the  Maine  and 


ASSISTANT  SECRETARY  OF  THE  NAVY  89 

the  murder  of  our  men!    I  feel  so  deeply  that  it  is  with 
very  great  difficulty  I  can  restrain  myself.' ' 

On  the  following  day,  March  30,  he  wrote  again  to  Cap- 
tain Cowles: 

"Of  course  I  cannot  speak  in  public,  but  I  have  advised 
the  President  in  the  presence  of  his  Cabinet,  as  well  as 
Judge  Day  and  Senator  Hanna,  as  strongly  as  I  knew  how, 
to  settle  this  matter  instantly  by  armed  intervention;  and 
I  told  the  President  in  the  plainest  language  that  no  other 
course  was  compatible  with  our  national  honor,  or  with  the 
claims  of  humanity  on  behalf  of  the  wretched  women  and 
children  of  Cuba.  I  am  more  grieved  and  indignant  than 
I  can  say  at  there  being  any  delay  on  our  part  in  a  matter 
like  this.  A  great  crisis  is  upon  us,  and  if  we  do  not  rise 
level  to  it,  we  shall  have  spotted  the  pages  of  our  history 
with  a  dark  blot  of  shame.' ' 

On  the  same  day,  to  another  brother-in-law,  Douglas 
Robinson,  of  New  York,  he  wrote : 

i '  Neither  I  nor  any  one  else  can  give  you  more  than  the 
merest  vague  forecast  of  events.  The  President  is  resolute 
to  have  peace  at  any  price.  As  far  as  he  is  concerned,  un- 
less the  Spaniards  declare  war,  we  will  not  have  it.  Con- 
gress, however,  is  in  an  entirely  different  temper.  The 
most  influential  man  in  it,  Tom  Reed,  is  as  much  against 
war  as  the  President,  and  the  group  of  Senators  who  stand 
closest  to  the  President  are  also  ferociously  against  war. 
Nevertheless,  Congress  as  a  whole  wishes  either  war  or 
action  that  would  result  in  war.  Their  most  patriotic  and 
able  men  take  this  view,  and  I  doubt  if  they  can  be  much 
longer  restrained.  Therefore  I  think  it  about  a  toss-up 
whether  we  have  war  or  peace.  The  trend  of  events  is  for 
war.  Congress  is  for  war.  All  it  needs  is  a  big  leader; 
but  the  two  biggest  leaders,  the  President  and  the  Speaker, 
both  of  whom  have  enormous  power,  are  almost  crazy  in 
their  eagerness  for  peace,  and  would  make  almost  any  sac- 
rifice to  get  peace." 


90  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Writing  to  Elihu  Root,  on  April  5,  1898,  he  reveals  the 
sources  from  which  came  the  most  powerful  pressure 
against  war  and  to  which  the  Administration  was  yielding : 

"  You  would  be  amazed  and  horrified  at  the  peace-at-any- 
price  telegrams  of  the  most  abject  description  which  come 
in  multitudes  from  New  York,  Boston,  and  elsewhere  to  the 
President  and  Senators. 

"Not  only  is  the  peace  sentiment  of  the  eastern  seaboard 
not  the  sentiment  of  the  country  at  large,  but  I  doubt 
whether  this  sentiment  exists  in  the  strata  lower  than  the 
wealthiest  even  in  the  East. 

"The  President  has  taken  a  position  from  which  he  can- 
not back  down  without  ruin  to  his  reputation,  ruin  to  his 
party,  and,  above  all,  lasting  dishonor  to  his  country;  and 
I  am  sure  he  will  not  back  down. 

"Thank  Heaven,  this  morning  it  looks  as  if  the  Admin- 
istration had  made  up  its  mind  to  lead  the  movement  in- 
stead of  resisting  it  with  the  effect  of  shattering  the  party 
and  of  humiliating  the  nation.  Judge  Day,  who  together 
with  that  idol  of  the  Mugwumps,  Secretary  Gage,  has  been 
advocating  peace  under  almost  any  conditions,  has  just 
told  me  that  he  has  given  up  and  that  the  President  seems 
to  be  making  up  his  mind  to  the  same  effect.  Of  course 
from  the  military  standpoint  it  is  dreadful  to  have  delayed 
so*  long." 

To  a  college  classmate,  Dr.  Henry  Jackson,  of  Boston, 
who  had  written  to  him  in  support  of  peace-at-any-price, 
he  sent  this  characteristic  rejoinder  on  April  6,  1898 : 

"I  believe  it  criminal  for  us  to  submit  to  the  murder  of 
our  men,  and  to  the  butchery  of  Cuban  women  and  chil- 
dren. The  resources  of  diplomacy  have  been  exhausted. 
This  nation  has  erred  on  the  side  of  over-bearance. 
When  you  talk  of  this  war  being  undertaken  to  satisfy  the 
political  greed  of  a  parcel  of  politicians  you  show  the  most 
astounding  ignorance  of  the  conditions.  The  only  effective 
forces  against  the  war  are  the  forces  inspired  by  greed  and 


ASSISTANT  SECRETARY  OF  THE  NAVY  91 

fear,  and  the  forces  that  tell  in  favor  of  war  are  the  belief 
in  national  honor  and  common  humanity.' ' 

The  pre-war  portion  of  the  correspondence  closes  with 
this  despondent  view  of  the  situation  as  it  appeared  to  him 
on  April  7,  1898 :  "If  you  are  puzzled  you  can  imagine  the 
bitter  wrath  and  humiliation  which  I  feel  at  the  absolute 
lack  of  plans.  We  have  our  plans  in  the  Navy,  and  beyond 
that  there  is  absolutely  nothing.  The  President  doesn't 
know  what  message  he  will  send  in  or  what  he  will  do  if  we 
have  war." 

Four  days  later,  April  11,  1898,  President  McKinley,  left 
with  no  alternative  by  the  obviously  tricky  conduct  of  the 
Spanish  government  in  proposing  an  armistice  which  was  a 
sham  on  its  face,  made  up  his  mind  that  war  was  inevitable, 
and  sent  a  message  to  Congress  asking  it  to  empower  him 
to  end  hostilities  in  Cuba  and  to  secure  the  establishment 
of  a  stable  government  ' '  capable  of  maintaining  order  and 
observing  its  international  obligations."  Congress,  after 
full  discussion,  adopted,  on  April  19,  joint  resolutions  de- 
claring the  people  of  Cuba  free  and  independent,  demand- 
ing the  surrender  of  all  Spanish  authority  in  the  island,  and 
directing  and  empowering  the  President  to  enforce  the 
resolutions  by  using  the  full  land  and  naval  forces  of  the 
United  States.  Spain  declared  war  formally  on  April  24, 
and  the  United  States  did  the  same  on  April  25. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  WAR  WITH  SPAIN 

That  the  Navy  was  reasonably  well  prepared  for  the  war 
solely  because  of  the  efforts  of  Roosevelt,  is  clearly  revealed 
by  these  citations  from  his  correspondence.  For  months 
he  had  been  working  unceasingly  with  the  hearty  co-opera- 
tion of  the  ablest  men  in  the  service  to  get  material  in 
readiness  and  have  the  ships  properly  equipped  and  com- 
manded. It  was  due  solely  to  him  also  that  Admiral  Dewey 
was  in  command  of  the  Asiatic  squadron  and  that  that 
squadron  was  ready  to  sail  from  Hong  Kong  to  the  Philip- 
pines at  a  moment's  notice  and  was  in  condition  to  win  the 
battle  of  Manila.  There  is  abundant  proof  in  support  of 
these  statements. 

When  the  question  of  appointing  a  commander  of  the 
Asiatic  squadron  arose  in  the  fall  of  1897,  Roosevelt,  in 
accordance  with  his  established  policy  of  gathering  from 
every  source  information  as  to  who  were  the  best  men  to 
occupy  the  fighting  positions,  ascertained  that  sound  naval 
opinion  was  overwhelmingly  in  favor  of  Dewey  for  the  com- 
mand of  a  squadron.  He  had  been  struck  by  an  incident 
in  Dewey's  career  in  which  he  had,  without  authority  from 
the  Navy  Department  and  on  his  own  responsibility,  bought 
a  supply  of  coal  in  preparation  for  a  threatening  emer- 
gency. "The  incident,"  Roosevelt  says  in  his  'Autobi- 
ography,' "made  me  feel  that  here  was  a  man  who  could  be 
relied  upon  to  prepare  in  advance,  and  to  act  promptly, 
fearlessly,  and  on  his  own  responsibility  when  the  emer- 
gency arose.  Accordingly  I  did  my  best  to  get  him  put  in 
command  of  the  Asiatic  fleet,  the  fleet  where  it  was  most 
essential  to  have  a  man  who  would  act  without  referring 
things  back  to  the  home  authorities." 

92 


THE  WAR  WITH  SPAIN  93 

The  manner  in  which  Roosevelt's  desire  was  accom- 
plished is  told  as  follows  by  Admiral  Dewey  himself  in  his 
*  Autobiography '  (Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  1913) : 

"The  most  influential  officer  in  the  distribution  of  assign- 
ments was  Rear- Admiral  A.  S.  Crowninshield,  chief  of  the 
Bureau  of  Navigation,  and  a  pronounced  bureaucrat,  with 
whose  temperament  and  methods  I  had  little  more  sym- 
pathy than  had  the  majority  of  the  officers  of  the. navy  at 
that  time.  He  would  hardly  recommend  me  to  any  com- 
mand ;  and  his  advice  had  great  weight  with  John  D.  Long, 
who  was  then  Secretary  of  the  Navy. 

"Theodore  Roosevelt  was  Assistant  Secretary  of  the^" 
Navy.  He  was  impatient  of  red  tape,  and  had  a  singular 
understanding  both  of  the  importance  of  preparedness  for 
war  and  of  striking  quick  blows  in  rapid  succession  once 
war  was  begun.  With  the  enthusiastic  candor  which  char- 
acterizes him,  he  declared  that  I  ought  to  have  the  Asiatic 
Squadron.  He  asked  me  if  I  had  any  political  influence. 
I  expressed  a  natural  disinclination  to  use  it.  He  agreed 
with  the  correctness  of  my  view  as  an  officer,  but  this  was  a 
situation  where  it  must  be  used  in  self-defense.  One  letter 
from  an  influential  source  in  favor  of  Howell  had  already 
been  received  by  the  department. 

"  'I  want  you  to  go,'  Mr.  Roosevelt  declared.  'You  are 
the  man  who  will  be  equal  to  the  emergency  if  one  arises. 
Do  you  know  any  Senators  V 

"My  heart  was  set  on  having  the  Asiatic  Squadron.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  we  were  inevitably  drifting  into  a  war 
with  Spain.  In  command  of  an  efficient  force  in  the  Far 
East,  with  a  free  hand  to  act  in  consequence  of  being  so  far 
away  from  Washington,  I  could  strike  promptly  and  suc- 
cessfully at  the  Spanish  force  in  the  Philippines. 

"  'Senator  Proctor  is  from  my  State,'  I  said  to  Mr. 
Roosevelt.  '  He  is  an  old  friend  of  the  family,  and  my  father 
was  of  service  to  him  when  he  was  a  young  man. ' 

"  'You  could  not  have  a  better  sponsor,'  Mr.  Roosevelt 
exclaimed.  'Lose  no  time  in  having  him  speak  a  word  for 
you.' 


94  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

"I  went  immediately  to  see  Senator  Proctor,  who  was 
delighted  that  I  had  mentioned  the  matter  to  him.  That 
very  day  he  called  on  President  McKinley  and  received  the 
promise  of  the  appointment  before  he  left  the  White  House. 

"When  I  next  met  Crbwninshield  he  told  me  that  al- 
though I  was  to  have  the  appointment — a  fact  which  did 
not  seem  to  please  him  any  too  well — Secretary  Long  was 
indignant  because  I  had  used  political  influence  to  obtain  it. 
I  went  at  once  to  see  Mr.  Long  and  said  to  him : 

"  'Mr.  Secretary,  I  understand  that  you  are  displeased 
with  me  for  having  used  influence  to  secure  command  of 
the  Asiatic  Squadron.  I  did  so  because  it  was  the  only  way 
of  offsetting  influence  that  was  being  exerted  on  another 
officer's  behalf.' 

"  'You  are  in  error,  Commodore,'  said  Mr.  Long.  'No 
influence  had  been  brought  to  bear  on  behalf  of  any  one 
else. ' 

"Only  a  few  hours  later,  however,  Mr.  Long  sent  me  a 
note  in  which  he  said  that  he  had  just  found  that  a  letter 
had  been  received  at  the  Department  which  he  had  seen  for 
the  first  time.  It  had  arrived  while  he  was  absent  from  the 
office  and  while  Mr.  Eoosevelt  was  Acting  Secretary,  and 
had  only  just  been  brought  to  his  attention." 

Dewey  was  appointed,  sailed  for  his  post  on  December 
7, 1897,  and  in  February  began  to  assemble  the  fleet  at  Hong 
Kong,  doing  so  i  *  entirely  on  my  own  initiative,  without  any 
hint  whatever  from  the  department  that  hostilities  might 
be  expected.  It  was  evident  that  in  case  of  emergency  Hong 
Kong  was  the  most  advantageous  position  from  which  to 
move  to  the  attack." 

News  of  the  blowing  up  of  the  Maine  did  not  reach  him 
officially  till  February  18,  1898,  when  he  received  the  fol- 
lowing cable  message: 

Dewey,  Hong  Kong: 

Maine  destroyed  at  Havana  February  15th  by  accident. 
The  President  directs  all  colors  to  be  half  masted  until  fur- 


THE  WAR  WITH  SPAIN  95 

ther  orders.    Inform  vessels  under  your  command  by  tele- 
graph. Long. 

Of  this  message  Dewey  writes :  "Its  wording  shows  how 
carefully  our  government  was  moving  in  a  moment  of  such 
intense  excitement. ' '  What  happened  next,  is  described  by 
him  as  follows: 

"Though  President  McKinley  was  still  confident  that 
war  could  be  averted,  active  naval  measures  had  already 
begun,  so  far  as  navy-yard  work  upon  ships  and  initial  in- 
quiries with  regard  to  the  purchase  of  war  material  was 
concerned.  But  the  first  real  step  was  taken  on  February 
25,  when  telegraphic  instructions  were  sent  to  the  Asiatic, 
European,  and  South  Atlantic  Squadrons  to  rendezvous  at 
certain  convenient  points  where,  should  war  break  out,  they 
would  be  most  available. 

"The  message  to  the  Asiatic  Squadron  bore  the  signa- 
ture of  that  Assistant  Secretary  who  had  seized  the  oppor- 
tunity, while  Acting  Secretary,  to  hasten  preparations  for 
a  conflict  which  was  inevitable.  As  Mr.  Roosevelt  reasoned, 
precautions  would  cost  little  in  time  of  peace  and  would 
be  invaluable  in  case  of  war.  His  cablegram  was  as  follows : 

Washington,  February  25,  1898. 
Dewey,  Hong  Kong:  j 

Order  the  squadron  except  the  Monocacy  to  Hong  Kong. 
Keep  full  of  coal.  In  the  event  of  declaration  of  war  Spain, 
your  duty  will  be  to  see  that  the  Spanish  Squadron  does 
not  leave  the  Asiatic  coast,  and  then  offensive  operations  in 
Philippine  Islands.     Keep  Olympia  until  further  orders. 

Roosevelt. 

1 1  The  reference  to  keeping  the  Olympia  until  further  or- 
ders was  due  to  the  fact  that  I  had  been  notified  that  she 
would  soon  be  recalled  to  the  United  States." 

Dewey  obeyed  these  instructions  and  proceeded  to  get 
his  fleet  in  readiness  for  sailing  for  Manila  at  a  moment's 


96  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

notice,  so  that  when  the  following  order  came  from  Secre- 
tary Long,  on  April  25,  two  months  after  Roosevelt's  mes- 
sage to  Dewey,  he  was  ready  to  obey : 

"War  has  commenced  between  the  United  States  and 
Spain.  Proceed  at  once  to  Philippine  Islands.  Commence 
operations  particularly  against  the  Spanish  fleet.  You  must 
capture  vessels  or  destroy.    Use  utmost  endeavor.' ' 

Thus  was  the  famous  battle  of  Manila  fought  and  won 
by  a  commander  whose  appointment  had  been  secured  by 
Roosevelt  against  the  wishes  of  Secretary  Long  and  whose 
fleet  had  been  thoroughly  equipped  for  the  conflict  by  an 
order  that  Roosevelt  had  sent  on  his  own  responsibility  in 
the  absence  of  his  chief. 

A  few  months  later  Secretary  Long's  personal  attitude 
toward  the  course  pursued  by  his  assistant  was  revealed  in 
the  following  letter  to  Roosevelt  from  Senator  Lodge,  de- 
cidedly the  most  interesting  and  illuminating  letter  in  the 
present  collection:    (The  italics  are  mine.) 

Nahant,  Mass.,  September  21,  1898. 
Dear  Theodore: 

I  am  going  to  ask  for  five  minutes  of  your  crowded  time 
to  read  this  letter  and  give  me  a  little  help.  I  am  getting 
together  of  course  the  necessary  materials  for  my  war 
articles.  The  second  one  will  be  about  Manila,  and  as  the 
first  is  well  advanced  I  am  already  gathering  facts  for  the 
second.  I  intended  to  begin  by  a  reference  to  your  order  to 
Dewey  of  February  25th.  You  no  doubt  remember  that 
memorable  Saturday  afternoon  when  I  came  in  and  found 
you  and  Crowninshield  sending  out  this  order  which  was 
of  such  enormous  importance  and  value  in  the  subsequent 
operations.  I  wrote  to  Crowninshield  that  I  knew  the  pur- 
port of  the  order,  but  that  as  a  matter  of  caution  I  should 
be  much  obliged  if  I  could  have  its  exact  terms.  Here  is  a 
copy  of  what  he  said  in  reply.  If  you  do  not  smile  when 
you  read  it  I  shall  be  surprised: 


THE  WAR  WITH  SPAIN  97 

"Replying  to  your  note  of  September  19th,  I  have  spoken 
to  the  Secretary  and  he  is  unwilling  to  give  you  the  exact 
language  of  the  order  referred  to.  You  will  probably  see 
yourself  that  to  do  so  might  appear  to  put  us  in  a  light  of 
being  almost  over-prepared;  in  other  words,  it  might  seem 
that  the  Department^  had  as  early  as  February  25th,  the 
date  of  the  order,  made  up  its  mind  that  there  was  to  be  war 
anyway.  Other  orders  issued  about  this  time  could  only  be 
called  precautionary,  but  by  some  this  particular  order 
might  be  construed  as  indicated  above." 

Here  follows  what  I  have  said  in  reply  to  him,  which  I 
think  will  make  you  smile  also : 

"Many  thanks  for  your  letter  of  September  19th.  I  only 
asked  for  the  language  of  the  order  of  February  25th  to  Ad- 
miral Dewey  out  of  a  spirit  of  caution  which  many  years  of 
historical  studies  have  cultivated  in  me.  I  know  the  purport 
of  the  order  as  I  happened  to  be. in  the  office  that  afternoon 
when  you  and  Mr.  Roosevelt  were  sending  it  off,  and  a 
general  statement  such  as  I  can  make  from  memory  will 
serve  my  purpose  perfectly  well.  I  confess  that  now  that 
the  war  is  over  and  when  one  of  the  things  of  which  every- 
body is  most  proud  and  for  which  the  Department  received 
the  most  unstinted  praise  was  the  state  of  preparation  in 
which  the  Navy  found  itself,  I  cannot  conceive  that  any 
human  being  should  criticize  the  Department  for  being 
over-prepared,  but  of  this  no  doubt  the  Department  is  the 
better  judge.  I  shall  speak  of  the  order  sent  out  by  you 
and  Mr.  Roosevelt  in  my  articles  as  one  of  the  wisest  things 
that  was  done,  a  proposition  which  I  consider  proved  by  the 
little  affair  at  Manila  on  the  1st  of  May.  My  intention  was 
simply  to  refer  to  it  as  an  order  of  the  Department,  but  if 
the  Secretary  has  the  slightest  objection  to  my  doing  so  I 
will  say  that  the  order  was  sent  by  Mr.  Roosevelt  as  Acting 
Secretary,  and  /  have  no  doubt  the  Colonel  of  the  Rough 
Riders  will  accept  the  responsibility  of  being  over-prepared 
with  perfect  equanimity." 

Now  what  I  want  of  you  is  to  give  me  your  best  recollec- 
tion of  the  general  purport  of  the  order.    I  remember  it 


98  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

pretty  well  myself,  but  I  want  to  have  your  memory  to  con- 
firm mine,  and  that  will  be  all-sufficient  for  the  statement 
I  wish  to  make.  There  is  something  very  comic  in  our  dear 
Secretary  thinking  he  will  be  criticized  for  being  over- 
prepared  and  precipitating  the  war  if  that  order  is  pub- 
lished. 

H.  C.  Lodge. 

In  his  book,  "The  War  with  Spain"  (Harper  &  Brothers, 
1899),  Senator  Lodge  records  the  incident  as  follows: 

"On  February  25  a  cable  message  was  sent  to  Commo- 
dore Dewey  by  Mr.  Eoosevelt  directing  him  to  assemble 
his  squadron  at  Hong  Kong,  retain  the  Olympia  which  had 
been  ordered  back  to  San  Francisco,  and  be  prepared  in 
case  of  war  for  offensive  operations  in  the  Philippines.  On 
the  3d  of  March  the  Mohican  was  sent  with  ammunition  to 
Honolulu,  there  to  await  the  Baltimore,  which  was  to  take 
the  ammunition  on  board  and  proceed  at  once  to  join  the 
Asiatic  Squadron.  No  wiser  or  more  far-sighted  precau- 
tions were  ever  taken  by  an  administration  than  these,  and 
it  was  all  done  so  quietly  that  no  one  on  the  outside  knew 
what  was  happening.,, 

Writing  to  John  Hay,  Secretary  of  State,  on  July  1, 1899, 
Eoosevelt  gave  his  own  view  of  what  would  have  been  the 
outcome  at  Manila  if  Dewey  had  not  been  in  command  and 
if  the  fleet  had  not  been  in  a  condition  of  thorough  prepara- 
tion. 

"In  last  year's  fighting,  as  the  President  knows,  there 
was  a  good  deal  of  hesitation  in  sending  Dewey  to  the 
Asiatic  Squadron.  It  was  urged  very  strongly  by  the 
Bureau  of  Navigation  that  Howell  was  entitled  to  go. 
Finally,  and  most  wisely,  the  Secretary  decided  to  disre- 
gard the  argument  of  seniority  and  to  send  Dewey.  If  he 
had  not  done  so,  there  would  have  been  no  Philippine  prob- 
lem at  present,  for  our  fleet  would  have  done  nothing  more 
than  to  conduct  a  solemn  blockade  of  Manila  until  our  coal 
gave  out,  and  then  go  away." 


THE  WAR  WITH  SPAIN  99 

An  additional  instance  of  Secretary  Long's  personal  at- 
titude toward  Roosevelt  was  revealed  several  years  later 
in  an  article  which  he  published  in  the  Outlook  magazine. 
Concerning  this  Roosevelt  wrote  to  him  on  October  12, 1903 : 

"In  the  Outlook,  in  an  article  written  by  you,  there  has 
appeared  this  statement  about  me  when  I  was  Assistant 
Secretary  to  you :  '  Just  before  the  war  he,  as  well  as  some 
naval  officers,  was  anxious  to  send  the  squadron  across  the 
ocean  to  sink  the  ships  and  torpedo-boat  destroyers  of  the 
Spanish  fleet  while  we  were  yet  at  peace  with  Spain.  *  I  am 
sure  that  you  did  not  intend  to  state  the  proposition  just 
as  it  is  here  expressed.  My  memory  is  that  I  wished  to 
treat  the  sending  over  by  Spain  of  her  battleships  and  de- 
stroyers as  a  cause  of  war.  My  memory  is  also  that  when 
two  or  more  of  the  armor-clads  of  Spain  were  in  Havana — 
not  on  the  coast  of  Spain — just  before  the  outbreak  of  hos- 
tilities, I  desired  some  of  our  ships  sent  down  to  watch 
them.    Do  you  not  refer  to  these  two  facts? 

"I  would  not  bother  you  about  this,  my  dear  Governor, 
but  it  seems  to  me  to  be  a  very  serious  accusation,  when 
brought  against  me  by  a  gentleman  of  your  high  standing, 
my  former  chief ;  and  it  has  seemingly  been  so  accepted  by 
the  public  at  large,  if  I  am  to  judge  by  the  activity  of  the 
gentlemen  of  the  press  in  seeking  interviews  with  me  this 
morning. ' ' 

To  this  letter  Mr.  Long  wrote  a  reply  in  which  he  pro- 
fessed to  see  no  difference  between  what  he  had  written  and 
what  Roosevelt  thought  he  should  have  written.  In  a 
second  letter,  October  15,  1903,  Roosevelt  wrote : 

"I  thank  you  for  your  letter.  I  am  sure  I  need  not  tell 
you  how  well  I  know  your  kindly  feelings  toward  me,  which 
feelings  found  full  expression  in  the  general  tenor  of  your 
article.  I  think,  however,  that  it  was  a  pity  that  in  such 
an  important  matter  as  this  I  was  not  given  a  chance  to  try 
to  refresh  your  memory  on  any  point  where  we  differed. 
It  is  perfectly  true  that  I  wished  a  declaration  of  war  long 
before  we  did  declare  it ;  and  I  also  desired  notice  to  be  sent 


100  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

to  the  Spanish  Government  that  we  should  treat  the  sailing 
of  the  fleet  as  an  act  of  war,  and  then  meet  the  fleet  on  the 
seas  and  smash  it  before  it  could  act  on  the  defensive.  It 
was  to  my  mind  obvious  that  armed  cruisers  and  torpedo- 
boats  could  not  be  used  against  the  insurgents,  and  could 
only  be  intended  for  use  against  us.  But  this  last  is  aside 
from  the  point.  Don't  you  think  the  two  statements  you 
have  made  as  to  my  attitude  are  in  themselves  a  little  in- 
consistent! You  speak  in  one  case  as  if  I  wished  to  send  a 
fleet  over  to  Spain  and  sink  the  Spanish  boats  while  we 
were  still  at  peace.  In  the  other  case  you  speak  of  the 
Spanish  vessels  as  having  sailed,  and  my  being  anxious  to 
meet  them  on  the  sea  and  smash  them.  I  am  sure  that  you 
will  recall  that  I  had  been  urging  a  declaration  of  war  for 
some  time — that  is,  urging  a  declaration  that  we  should 
take  certain  acts,  or  failures  to  act,  as  warranting  such 
declaration  after  notice  had  been  given.  In  the  case  of  the 
sailing  of  the  torpedo-boats,  I  did  wish  us  to  notify  the 
Spanish  Government  that  we  should  treat  their  being  sent 
as  an  act  of  war.  In  the  form  in  which  the  statement  is 
made  in  the  Outlooh,  I  cannot  admit  that  either  I  or  any 
naval  officer  whom  I  was  associated  with  made  it — indeed 
I  do  not  recall  such  a  suggestion  made  by  any  one,  and  cer- 
tainly I  never  made  any  such  suggestion  myself,  as  that 
we  should  send  a  squadron  across  the  ocean  to  sink  the 
ships  and  torpedo-boat  destroyers  while  we  were  yet  at 
peace  with  Spain.  As  I  recall  it  and  all  that  I  remember 
any  naval  officer  urging,  was  that  we  should  notify  the 
Spanish  Government  that  we  should  treat  their  sailing  as 
an  act  of  war  and  that  we  should  then  conduct  ourselves 
accordingly." 

As  shown  in  his  correspondence,  Eoosevelt  had  resolved 
very  early  in  the  controversy  about  Cuba  that  if  there 
should  be  a  war  with  Spain  he  would  take  part  in  it.  He  had 
mentioned  this  purpose  to  McKinley  in  his  interview  with 
him  in  September,  1897,  quoted  above,  and  in  January  fol- 
lowing, when  the  probability  of  war  became  strong,  he 


THE  WAR  WITH  SMN  '  ,  10-1 

sought  to  get  into  the  service  in  a  New  York  militia  regi- 
ment as  a  major  under  Colonel  Francis  Vinton  Greene, 
saying  he  i '  was  going  to  go  somehow. ' '  On  March  9,  1898, 
he  wrote  to  Captain  C.  H.  Davis  of  the  navy  that i  i  if  there 
is  a  war  I  want  to  get  away  from  here  and  get  to  the  front 
if  I  possibly  can. ' '  On  the  following  day  he  wrote  to  Gen- 
eral Whitney  Tillinghast,  Adjutant-General  of  New  York : 
"Of  course  I  can't  leave  this  position  until  it  is  perfectly 
certain  we  are  going  to  have  a  war,  and  that  I  can  get  down 
to  it.  I  don't  want  to  be  in  office  during  war,  I  want  to  be 
at  the  front ;  but  I  would  rather  be  in  this  office  than  guard- 
ing a  fort  and  no  enemy  within  a  thousand  miles  of  me.  Of 
course  being  here  hampers  me.  If  I  were  in  New  York  City 
I  think  I  could  raise  a  regiment  of  volunteers  in  short  order 
when  the  President  told  me  to  go  ahead,  but  it  is  going  to  be 
difficult  from  here." 


Colonel  Greene  had  written  that  for  various  reasons  it 
was  not  practicable  for  Eoosevelt  to  go  to  war  under  him, 
and  on  March  15  Roosevelt  again  wrote  to  him : 

"I  don't  agree  with  you  as  to  my  post  of  duty.  I  don't 
want  to  be  in  an  office  instead  of  at  the  front;  but  I  dare 
say  I  shall  have  to  be,  and  shall  try  to  do  good  work  wher- 
ever I  am  put.  I  have  long  been  accustomed,  not  to  taking 
the  positions  I  should  like,  but  to  doing  the  best  that  I  was 
able  to  do  in  a  position  I  did  not  altogether  like,  and  under 
conditions  which  I  didn  't  like  at  all.  But  I  shall  hope  still 
that  in  the  event  of  serious  war  I  may  have  a  chance  to 
serve  under  you." 

Writing  to  Adjutant-General  Tillinghast  again  on  March 
26,  he  said: 

"It  looks  to  me  as  though  matters  were  coming  to  a 
climax,  and  we  should  soon  see  actual  trouble  with  Spain. 
I  wish  the  Governor  would  say  whether  or  not  he  believes 
that  the  State  militia  would  be  sent  out  of  the  State,  that 
is,  down  to  Cuba  as  part  of   an   expeditionary   force,   or 


102  THEODORS  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

whether  we  shall  raise  volunteers.  If  the  latter,  will  you 
present  my  regards  to  him  and  ask  if  I  may  not  be  allowed 
to  raise  a  regiment?    I  think  I  can  certainly  do  it." 


On  the  same  date  he  wrote  as  follows  to  William  Astor 
Chanler,  a  member  of  Congress  from  New  York :  l  l  Things 
look  as  though  they  were  coming  to  a  head.  Now,  can  you 
start  getting  up  that  regiment  when  the  time  comes?  Do 
you  want  me  as  Lt.-Colonel?  Also,  remember  that  to  try 
to  put  toughs  in  it — still  worse  to  try  to  put  political  heelers 
in — will  result  in  an  utterly  unmanageable  regiment,  for- 
midable to  its  own  officers  and  impotent  to  do  mischief  to 
the  foe." 

His  reasons  for  desiring  to  get  into  the  war  were  set 
forth  in  full  in  a  very  striking  letter  which  he  wrote,  on 
March  29,  1898,  to  Doctor  Sturgis  Bigelow,  in  Boston. 
There  is  much  material  for  sober  thought  in  this  letter  for 
those  critics  of  Roosevelt  who  have  charged  him  with  favor- 
ing war  because  of  sheer  love  of  fighting : 

1 '  I  do  not  know  that  I  shall  be  able  to  go  to  Cuba  if  there 
is  a  war.  The  army  may  not  be  employed  at  all,  and  even 
if  it  is  employed  it  will  consist  chiefly  of  regular  troops ;  and 
as  regards  the  volunteers  only  a  very  small  proportion  can 
be  taken  from  among  the  multitudes  who  are  even  now 
coming  forward.  Therefore  it  may  be  that  I  shall  be  un- 
able to  go,  and  shall  have  to  stay  here.  In  that  case  I  shall 
do  my  duty  here  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  although  I  shall 
be  eating  out  my  heart.  But  if  I  am  able  to  go  I  certainly 
shall.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  I  shall  be  leaving  one  duty, 
but  it  will  only  be  for  the  purpose  of  taking  up  another. 
I  say  quite  sincerely  that  I  shall  not  go  for  my  own  pleasure. 
On  the  contrary,  if  I  should  consult  purely  my  own  feelings 
I  should  earnestly  hope  that  we  would  have  peace.  I  like 
life  very  much.  I  have  always  led  a  joyous  life.  I  like 
thought  and  I  like  action,  and  it  will  be  very  bitter  to  me 
to  leave  my  wife  and  children ;  and  while  I  think  I  could  face 


THE  WAR  WITH  SPAIN  103 

death  with  dignity,  I  have  no  desire  before  my  time  has 
come  to  go  out  into  the  everlasting  darkness.  So  I  shall 
not  go  into  a  war  with  any  undue  exhilaration  of  spirits  or 
in  a  frame  of  mind  in  any  way  approaching  recklessness 
or  levity. 

"Moreover,  a  man's  usefulness  depends  upon  his  living 
up  to  his  ideals  in  so  far  as  he  can.  Now,  I  have  consist- 
ently preached  what  our  opponents  are  pleased  to  call 
*  Jingo  doctrines '  for  a  good  many  years.  One  of  the  com- 
monest taunts  directed  at  men  like  myself  is  that  we  are 
armchair  and  parlor  Jingoes  who  wish  to  see  others  do 
what  we  only  advocate  doing.  I  care  very  little  for  such 
a  taunt,  except  as  it  affects  my  usefulness,  but  I  cannot 
afford  to  disregard  the  fact  that  my  power  for  good,  what- 
ever it  may  be,  would  be  gone  if  I  didn  't  try  to  live  up  to  the 
doctrines  I  have  tried  to  preach.  Moreover,  it  seems  to  me 
that  it  would  be  a  good  deal  more  important  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  nation  as  a  whole  that  men  like  myself  should 
go  to  war  than  that  we  should  stay  comfortably  in  offices 
at  home  and  let  others  carry  on  the  war  that  we  have 
urged. '  *v 

A  way  was  opened  for  Roosevelt  to  get  into  the  war  when 
Congress  authorized  the  raising  of  three  National  Volun- 
teer Cavalry  Regiments,  wholly  apart  from  State  contin- 
gents. The  Secretary  of  War,  General  Alger,  offered  him 
the  command  of  one  of  these  regiments,  but  Roosevelt  de- 
clined it,  saying  that  after  six  weeks'  service  in  the  field 
he  would  feel  competent  to  handle  the  regiment,  but  that 
he  did  not  at  the  time  know  how  to  equip  it  or  how  to  get 
it  into  the  first  action.  He  recommended  for  the  command 
his  friend  Leonard  Wood,  who  was  as  eager  to  get  into  the 
war  as  he  was,  saying  to  the  Secretary  that  if  he  could  ap- 
point Wood  Colonel  he  would  accept  the  Lieutenant-Colo- 
nelcy. This  was  done,  and  the  famous  regiment  of  Rough 
Riders  was  formed.  Its  official  name  was  the  First  United 
States  Volunteer  Cavalry,  but  because  it  was  largely  com- 
posed of  Western  ranchmen,  it  was  promptly  nicknamed 


104  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Rough  Riders,  and  under  that  picturesque  title  passed 
through  the  war  and  into  history. 

When  he  sent  in  his  resignation  from  the  Navy  Depart- 
ment he  received,  among  others,  the  following  letters: 

Navy  Department,  Washington, 
May  7,  1898. 
My  dear  Mr.  Roosevelt: 

I  have  your  letter  of  resignation  to  the  President,  but  as 
I  have  told  you  so  many  times,  I  have  it  with  the  utmost 
regret.  I  have  often  expressed,  perhaps  too  emphatically 
and  harshly,  my  conviction  that  you  ought  not  to  leave  the 
post  of  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  where  your  ser- 
vices have  not  only  been  of  such  great  value,  but  of  so  much 
inspiration  to  me  and  to  the  whole  service.  But  now  that 
you  have  determined  to  go  to  the  front,  I  feel  bound  to  say 
that,  while  I  do  not  approve  of  the  change,  I  do  most  heart- 
ily appreciate  the  patriotism  and  the  sincere  fidelity  to  your 
convictions  which  actuate  you. 

Let  me  assure  you  how  most  profoundly  I  feel  the  loss  I 
sustain  in  your  going,  for  your  energy,  industry  and  great 
knowledge  of  naval  interests,  and  especially  your  inspiring 
influence  in  stimulating  and  lifting  the  whole  tone  of  the 
personnel  of  the  Navy  have  been  invaluable. 

I  cannot  close  this  reply  to  your  letter  without  telling 
you  also  what  an  affectionate  personal  regard  I  have  come 
to  feel  for  you  as  a  man  of  the  truest  temper  and  most  loyal 
friendship.  I  rejoice  that  one  who  has  so  much  capacity 
for  public  service  and  for  winning  personal  friendships 
has  the  promise  of  so  many  years  of  useful  and  loving  life 
before  him. 

My  heart  goes  with  you,  and  I  am, 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

John  D.  Long. 
Hon.  Theodore  Roosevelt, 

Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy, 
Navy  Department. 


THE  WAR  WITH  SPAIN  105 

Executive  Mansion,  Washington, 
May  9,  1898. 
My  dear  Mr.  Secretary: 

Although  the  President  was  obliged  to  accept  your  resig- 
nation of  recent  date,  I  can  assure  you  that  he  has  done 
so  with  very  great  regret.  Only  the  circumstances  men- 
tioned in  your  letter  and  your  decided  and  unchangeable 
preference  for  your  new  patriotic  work  have  induced  the 
President  to  consent  to  your  severing  your  present  connec- 
tion with  the  Administration. 

Your  services  here  during  your  entire  term  in  office  have 
been  faithful,  able  and  successful  in  the  highest  degree,  and 
no  one  appreciates  this  fact  more  keenly  than  the  President 
himself.  Without  doubt  your  connection  with  the  Navy 
will  be  beneficially  felt  in  several  of  its  departments  for 
many  years  to  come. 

In  the  President's  behalf  therefore  I  wish  at  this  time  to 
thank  you  most  heartily  and  to  wish  you  all  success  in  your 
new  and  important  undertaking,  for  which  I  hope  and  pre- 
dict a  brilliantly  victorious  result. 

With  sincere  respect  and  cordial  esteem,  believe  me, 
always 

Faithfully  yours, 

John    Addison    Porter, 

Secretary  to  the  President. 
Hon.  Theodore  Eoosevelt, 

Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy, 
Washington,  D.  C. 

Among  the  many  letters  of  congratulation  that  Roosevelt 
received  at  the  close  of  the  war  were  the  following  from 
John  Hay,  then  United  States  Ambassador  to  England, 
and  James  Bryce,  afterwards  Viscount  Bryce,  author  of 
the  "  American  Commonwealth  " : 

American  Embassy,  London,  July  27,  1898. 
Dear  Roosevelt: 

I  am  afraid  I  am  the  last  of  your  friends  to  congratulate 
you  on  the  brilliant  campaign  which  now  seems  drawing  to 


106  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

a  close,  and  in  which  you  have  gained  so  much  experience 
and  glory.  When  the  war  began  I  was  like  the  rest ;  I  de- 
plored your  place  in  the  Navy  where  you  were  so  useful 
and  so  acceptable.  But  I  know  it  was  idle  to  preach  to  a 
young  man.  You  obeyed  your  own  daemon,  and  I  imagine 
we  older  fellows  will  all  have  to  confess  that  you  were  in 
the  right.    As  Sir  Walter  wrote : 

One  crowded  hour  of  glorious  life 
Is  worth  an  age  without  a  name. 

You  have  written  your  name  on  several  pages  of  your 
country's  history,  and  they  are  all  honorable  to  you  and 
comfortable  to  your  friends. 

It  has  been  a  splendid  little  war ;  begun  with  the  highest 
motives,  carried  on  with  magnificent  intelligence  and  spirit, 
favored  by  that  Fortune  which  loves  the  brave.  It  is  now 
to  be  concluded,  I  hope,  with  that  fine  good  nature,  which 
is,  after  all,  the  distinguishing  trait  of  the  American  char- 
acter. 

Faithfully  yours, 

John  Hay. 


Hindleap  Lodge, 
Forest  Row,  Sussex, 
September  12,  1898. 
My  dear  Roosevelt: 

Our  hearty  congratulations  on  your  safe  return  and  on 
the  laurels  you  have  won.  I  was  sorry  you  retired  from  a 
post  in  which  you  were  doing  so  much  first-rate  work  as  the 
Assistant  Secretaryship  of  the  Navy.  But  you  have  justi- 
fied your  action,  and  have  had  an  experience  which  will  be 
of  the  utmost  service  to  yourself  and  I  hope  to  your  coun- 
try, too. 

How  stupendous  a  change  in  the  world  these  six  months 
have  brought.  Six  months  ago  you  no  more  thought  of  an- 
nexing the  Philippine  Isles  and  Porto  Eico  than  you  think 
of  annexing  Spitzbergen  to-day.  In  the  interest  of  the 
United  States,  I  am -uneasy  at  the  change,  because  the  new 
enterprises  you  will  enter  on  are  enterprises  for  which 


THE  WAR  WITH  SPAIN  107 

your  Constitution  and  government  have  not  been  framed; 
and  mistakes  may  be  made,  many  and  serious,  before  you 
develop  the  institutions  needed.  Perhaps  it  is  because 
we  have  had  such  a  lot  of  experience,  some  of  it  most  unsat- 
isfactory, with  our  tropical  colonies,  that  I  am  more  anxious 
to  see  the  American  people  purify  city  government  and  do 
certain  other  jobs  at  home  than  to  see  them  civilize  the 
Malays  and  aborigines  of  Luzon.  However,  you  are  clearly 
' '  in  for  it, ' '  and  what  I  hope  you  will  do  is  to  have  a  healthy 
despotism  governing  these  tropical  semi-savages  and  even 
the  Spanish  Creoles.  No  talk  of  suffrage  or  any  such  con- 
stitutional privileges  for  them,  but  steady  government  by 
the  firmest,  most  honest  men  you  can  find,  and  no  inter- 
ference if  possible  by  Congress  when  the  firm  and  honest 
men  have  been  found. 

It  is  a  happy  result  of  the  last  six  months  that  your  people 
and  ours  seem  nearer  together  in  sympathy  than  ever  be- 
fore. You  will  have  noticed  that  nearly  every  one  here 
applauds  your  imperialistic  new  departure.  We  are  here 
growing  more  imperialistic  than  ever. 

My  wife  joins  in  best  regards — I  hope  by  next  year  to  be 
writing  to  you  to  Albany. 

Sincerely  yours, 

James  Bbyce. 

An  amusing  side-light  upon  the  military  conduct  of  the 
operations  in  Cuba  during  the  Spanish  War  is  cast  in  this 
letter  from  Roosevelt  to  Senator  Lodge  under  date  of 
March  3,  1899 : 

"Lee,  the  British  Military  Attache,  told  me  a  lovely  story 
the  other  day.  He  met  the  Russian  Military  Attache  in 
London  and  gave  him  a  dinner,  at  which  the  Russian  waxed 
eloquent  over  his  sufferings  at  Santiago,  and,  as  capping 
the  climax,  described  how,  when  he  went  to  pay  his  respects 
and  say  good-by  to  General  Shafter,  the  latter  looked  at 
him  with  his  usual  easy  polish  and  grace,  and  remarked: 
'  Well,  good-by.  Who  are  you,  anyway,  the  Russian  or  the 
German  V    I  shouted.    Think  of  the  feelings  of  Yemiloff, 


108  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

the  nice  little  military  and  diplomatic  pedant,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  on  the  other,  of  good,  vulgar  Shafter's  magnifi- 
cent indifference  to  ethnic  and  diplomatic  niceties ! ' ' 

One  further  citation  from  Roosevelt's  correspondence 
relating  to  this  period  may  properly  be  made  here.  When 
in  March,  1901,  General  Funston  executed  his  brilliant  feat 
of  capturing  Aguinaldo,  the  leader  of  the  Philippine  insur- 
gents, thus  completing  the  American  conquest  of  the  Phil- 
ippines, Eoosevelt  wrote,  on  March  30,  1901,  a  letter  of  con- 
gratulation to  Funston,  in  which  he  predicted  a  national 
condition  of  unpreparedness  which  was  strikingly  like  that 
in  which  the  country  found  itself  when  it  was  compelled  to 
declare  war  with  Germany  in  1917 : 

"This  is  no  perfunctory  or  formal  letter  of  congratula- 
tion. I  take  pride  in  this  crowning  exploit  of  a  career  filled 
with  cool  courage,  iron  endurance  and  gallant  daring,  be- 
cause you  have  added  your  name  to  the  honor  roll  of  Amer- 
ican worthies.  Your  feat  will  rank  with  Cushing's  when 
he  sank  the  Albemarle,  Otherwise,  I  cannot  recall  any 
single  feat  in  our  history  which  can  compare  with  it. 

"Our  people  as  a  whole  are  unquestionably  very  short- 
sighted about  making  (war)  preparations.  Under  such  cir- 
cumstances it  is  always  possible  that  we  may  find  ourselves 
pitted  against  a  big  military  power  where  we  shall  need  to 
develop  fighting  material  at  the  very  outset,  and  then  I 
am  one  of  many  millions  who  would  look  with  confidence 
to  what  you  would  do.  Incidentally,  if  that  day  is  not  too 
far  distant,  I  shall  hope  to  be  serving  under  or  alongside 
of  you.  I  think  I  could  raise  at  once  a  brigade  of  three  or 
four  such  regiments  as  I  commanded  at  Santiago." 

As  Colonel  Roosevelt's  active  participation  in  the  war 
with  Spain  has  been  set  forth  by  himself  in  his  *  Autobiog- 
raphy '  and  in  his  book,  'The  Rough  Riders,'  no  account 
of  it  is  included  in  the  present  narrative. 


CHAPTER  XI 

GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK— FIRST  YEAR 

On  his  return  from  the  war  with  Spain,  in  September, 
1898,  Roosevelt  was  greeted  with  great  popular  enthusiasm, 
and  was  offered  almost  immediately  two  nominations  for 
the  Governorship  of  the  State.  The  first  offer  was  made 
tentatively  by  an  emissary  from  T.  C.  Piatt,  then  United 
States  Senator  and  absolute  boss  of  the  Republican  organi- 
zation in  the  State.  The  emissary  said  he  had  come,  not  to 
offer  the  nomination,  but  to  ascertain  if  Roosevelt  desired 
it,  and,  if  in  the  event  of  nomination  and  election,  he  would 
"make  war"  on  Mr.  Piatt  and  the  organization,  or  would 
confer  with  them  and  give  fair  consideration  to  their  views 
of  party  policy  and  the  public  interest;  he  asked  for  no 
pledges  but  simply  for  a  frank  definition  of  Roosevelt's 
attitude  toward  existing  party  conditions.  It  was  well 
known  at  the  time  that  Piatt  had  been  forced,  quite  unwil- 
lingly, to  turn  to  Roosevelt  as  the  only  candidate  who  could 
save  his  party  from  what  seemed  to  be  certain  defeat  be- 
cause of  the  unpopularity  of  the  existing  Republican  ad- 
ministration under  a  subservient  Piatt  man  in  the  Gover- 
norship. Roosevelt  replied  to  the  emissary  that  he  would 
like  to  be  nominated,  and  that  if  elected  he  would  not  make 
war  upon  Piatt  or  anybody  else,  if  war  could  be  avoided; 
that  he  desired  to  be  Governor  and  not  a  faction  leader; 
that  he  would  confer  with  the  organization  men,  as  with 
everybody  else  who  seemed  to  him  to  have  knowledge  of  and 
interest  in  public  affairs,  and  that  as  to  Piatt  and  the  organ- 
ization leaders,  he  would  do  so  in  the  sincere  hope  that  there 
might  result  always  harmony  of  opinion  and  purpose ;  but 
that  while  he  would  try  to  get  on  well  with  the  organization, 
the  organization  must  with  equal  sincerity  strive  to  do 

109 


110  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

what  he  regarded  as  essential  for  the' public  good;  and  that 
in  tfvery  case,  after  full  consideration  of  what  everybody 
had  to  say  who  might  possess  full  knowledge  of  the  matter, 
he  should  have  to  act  finally  as  his  own  conscience  and 
judgment  dictated  and  administer  the  State  government  as 
he  thought  it  should  be  administered.  This  was  reported 
to  Piatt  and  ultimately  accepted  by  him. 

While  this  nomination  was  pending,  the  independent  or- 
ganizations of  the  city  of  New  York,  oh  September  9,  put 
forth  a  statement  in  the  press  declaring  that  after  full  con- 
sideration they  had  agreed  to  offer  the  nomination  for  Gov- 
ernor to  Eoosevelt  for  the  following,  among  other  reasons : 

"Mr.  Roosevelt's  magnificent  record  makes  him  the 
natural  candidate  for  Governor.  We  need  not  describe 
Theodore  Roosevelt.  Our  reasons  for  nominating  him  are 
plain.  We  think  that  the  evils  of  our  public  life  can  be 
traced  to  the  exclusive  control  over  nominations  by  party 
bosses  and  their  creatures.  While  Roosevelt  is  a  party 
man,  he  is  one  in  whom  the  masses  of  the  people  of  both  par- 
ties feel  a  confidence  amounting  to  devotion,  and  who  in 
his  person  represents  independence  and  reform. 

"There  is  nothing  which  his  mind  sees  as  evil  that  he 
would  not  expose  as  readily  in  his  own  party  as  in  that  of 
his  opponents.  To  have  such  a  man  for  Governor,  with  the 
experience  in  administration  which  he  possesses,  would  be 
of  incalculable  benefit  to  the  State." 

To  this  declaration  there  was  appended  a  full  state  ticket 
with  Roosevelt  at  its  head  for  Governor  and  candidates  for 
all  other  State  offices.  It  was  an  anti-Republican  organiza- 
tion ticket  throughout  and  compelled  Roosevelt,  if  he  should 
accept  the  nomination,  to  run  as  an  out-and-out  indepen- 
dent candidate  without  hope  of  support  from  the  Republi- 
can party,  and  consequently  without  hope  of  election.  The 
inevitable  result  of  his  candidacy  under  these  conditions 
would  have  been  the  election  of  the  Democratic  ticket. 

After  putting  forth  their  declaration,  the  Independents 
took  no  further  action,  making  no  formal  nomination  of 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK— FIRST  YEAR         111 

their  ticket.  In  the  meantime,  Piatt  had  accepted  Roose- 
velt's terms  and,  on  September  24,  Roosevelt  wrote  a  letter 
to  the  Independents,  in  which,  after  saying  that  it  was  some- 
what embarrassing  to  decline  a  nomination  which  had  never 
been  offered  to  him,  he  found  himself  unable  to  accept  for 
the  following,  among  other  reasons: 

"It  seems  to  me  that  I  would  not  be  acting  in  good  faith 
toward  my  fellow  candidates  if  I  permitted  my  name  to 
head  a  ticket  designed  for  their  overthrow ;  a  ticket,  more- 
over, which  cannot  be  put  up  because  of  objections  to  the 
character  or  fitness  of  any  candidate,  inasmuch  as  no  can- 
didate has  been  nominated. 

"I  write  this  with  great  reluctance,  for  I  wish  the  sup- 
port of  every  Independent.  If  elected  Governor,  I  would 
strive  to  serve  the  State  as  a  whole,  and  to  serve  my  party 
by  helping  it  serve  the  State.' ' 

The  leaders  of  the  Independents,  ignoring  what  they  had 
said  in  their  declaration  of  September  9, — that  while  he  was 
a  party  man  he  "represented  in  his  person  independence 
and  reform,"  and  that  he  would  "expose  evil  as  readily  in 
his  own  party  as  in  that  of  his  opponents" — turned  upon 
him  in  wrath  and  declared  that  he  had  "surrendered  to 
Piatt."  They  ignored  also,  what  was  well  known  to  all 
men,  that  he  was  acting  in  strict  accord  with  the  line  of 
conduct  which  he  had  followed  unvaryingly  from  the  outset 
of  his  political  career,  that  is,  fighting  evil  inside  of  his 
party  rather  than  fighting  the  party  itself  because  some  of 
its  leaders  and  members  were  guilty  of  evil  deeds.  He  had 
followed  this  policy  as  a  member  of  the  Legislature,  as 
Civil  Service  Commissioner,  and  as  Police  Commissioner. 
All  efforts  to  induce  him  to  act  as  a  chartered  Independent 
and  not  as  a  party  man  had  failed.  "My  desire,"  he  de- 
clared in  response  to  these  efforts,  "is  to  achieve  results., 
not  merely  to  issue  manifestoes  of  virtue."  Nobody 
knew  better  than  the  Independents  what '  his  attitude 
was,  for  he  had  stated  it  directly  to  them  many  times,  but 
on  every  succeeding  occasion  for  stating  it,  they  persisted 


112  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

in  accusing  him  of  deserting  his  principles.  This  method 
of  treatment  they  persisted  in  after  he  became  President, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  in  every  public  office  that  he  held 
he  accomplished  more  of  the  results  which  they  professed 
to  desire  than  any  other  public  man  of  his  time.  They 
would  not  reconcile  themselves  to  his  refusal  to  follow  their 
method  of  political  conduct  in  preference  to  his  own.  In 
the  case  of  the  Governorship  nomination,  they  had  sought 
to  force  Piatt  to  endorse  their  nomination  of  Roosevelt  in- 
stead of  having  him  nominated  by  the  Republican  party, 
and  when  they  failed  in  this  effort  they  refused  to  support 
Roosevelt  because  Piatt  had  nominated  him  in  another  way. 
Finally,  they  put  in  the  field  a  complete  Independent  ticket 
and  when  election  day  arrived  it  polled  a  total  vote  of  2,103, 
which  was  less  than  an  average  of  one  vote  for  each  election 
district  of  the  State. 

Roosevelt  was  nominated  unanimously  for  Governor  by 
the  Republican  Convention  on  September  27,  and  made  a 
vigorous  campaign.    Piatt  says  in  his  'Autobiography'  : 

"  Roosevelt  made  a  dramatic  campaign.  He  fairly 
pranced  about  the  State.  He  called  a  spade  a  '  spade/  a 
crook  a  '  crook. '  The  Rough  Rider  romped  home  on  election 
day  with  over  17,000  plurality. 

"  I  have  always  maintained  that  no  man  besides  Roose- 
velt could  have  accomplished  that  feat  in  1898.  * ' 

Immediately  following  the  election,  John  Hay,  then  Sec- 
retary of  State,  wrote  to  him  as  follows : 

"  While  you  are  Governor,  I  believe  the  party  can  be 
made  solid  as  never  before.  You  have  already  shown  that 
a  man  may  be  absolutely  honest  and  yet  practical;  a  re- 
former by  instinct  and  a  wise  politician;  brave,  bold,  and 
uncompromising,  and  yet  not  a  wild  ass  of  the  desert.  The 
exhibition  made  by  the  professional  Independents  in  voting 
against  you  for  no  reason  on  earth  except  that  somebody 
else  was  voting  for  you,  is  a  lesson  that  is  worth  its  cost. ' ' 

Roosevelt  was  inaugurated'  Governor  on  January  1,  1899, 
and  in  a  brief  address  he  outlined  clearly  the  course  of 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT,  GOVERNOR,  1899 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK— FIRST  YEAR         113 

action  that  he  had  maintained  throughout  his  political  ca- 
reer: 

"We  must  realize,  on  the  one  hand,  that  we  can  do  little 
if  we  do  not  set  ourselves  a  high  ideal,  and,  on  the  other, 
that  we  will  fail  in  accomplishing  even  this  little  if  we  do 
not  work  through  practical  methods  and  with  a  readiness 
to  face  life  as  it  is,  and  not  as  we  think  it  ought  to  be. 
Under  no  form  of  government  is  it  so  necessary  thus  to 
combine  efficiency  and  morality,  high  principle  and  rough 
common  sense,  justice  and  the  sturdiest  physical  and  moral 
courage,  as  in  a  republic.  It  is  absolutely  impossible  for  a 
republic  long  to  endure  if  it  becomes  either  corrupt  or  cow- 
ardly; if  its  public  men,  no  less  than  its  private  men,  lose 
the  indispensable  virtue  of  honesty,  if  its  leaders  of  thought 
become  visionary  doctrinaires,  or  if  it  shows  a  lack  of 
courage  in  dealing  with  the  many  grave  problems  which  it 
must  surely  face  both  at  home  and  abroad,  as  it  strives  to 
work  out  the  destiny  meet  for  a  mighty  Nation. 

"It  is  only  through  the  party  system  that  free  govern- 
ments are  now  successfully  carried  on,  and  yet  we  must 
keep  ever  vividly  before  us  that  the  usefulness  of  a  party 
is  strictly  limited  by  its  usefulness  to  the  State,  and  that 
in  the  long  run  he  serves  his  party  best  who  helps  to  make 
it  instantly  responsive  to  every  need  of  the  people  and  to 
the  highest  demands  of  that  spirit  which  tends  to  drive  us 
onward  and  upward.' ' 

It  is  perhaps  worthy  of  note  that  in  his  inaugural  address 
he  recommended  the  admission  of  women  to  the  suffrage  in 
voting  upon  school  matters.  Not  till  many  years  later,  in 
1911,  did  he  come  out  openly  in  favor  of  general  suffrage 
for  women. 

His  first  message  to  the  Legislature,  sent  in  on  January 
4,  attracted  unusual  attention  and  was  warmly  commended 
by  the  press,  by  none  more  so  than  the  few  Independent 
journals  which  had  not  found  themselves  able  to  support 
his  candidacy.  The  part  of  his  message  which  commanded 
heartiest  approval  was  that  in  which  he  condemned  the  law 


114  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

"  taking  the  starch  out  of  the  Civil  Service,"  of  which  his 
Piatt  predecessor  in  the  Governorship  had  secured  the  en- 
actment, and  recommended  its  repeal  and  the  restoration 
of  the  original  law. 

In  considering  Boosevelt's  administration  as  Governor 
it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  he  came  into  office  when  the 
boss  system  of  political  control  was  at  the  very  summit  of 
its  power.  Senator  Piatt  was  the  absolute  owner  of  the 
Eepublican  party  in  the  State.  When  it  was  in  office,  he 
was  the  real  ruler  of  the  State.  He  dictated  all  appoint- 
ments, including  those  for  the  bench,  and  exercised  all  the 
powers  of  the  Legislature.,  Under  the  guise  of  campaign 
contributions,  he  collected  vast  sums  from  the  corporations 
and  these  he  used  to  defray  the  election  expenses  of  can- 
didates for  the  Legislature,  with  the  tacit  or  implied  un- 
derstanding that  when  elected  they  should  follow  his  ' ■  or- 
ders" in  all  cases  in  which  he  chose  to  issue  them.  If  they 
disobeyed,  they  knew  they  would  not  be  renominated.  The 
corporations  gave  their  contributions  also  with  the  tacit 
understanding  that  their  interests  would  be  protected,  that 
legislation  which  they  desired  would  be  enacted,  and  that 
legislation  which  they  considered  hostile  would  fail.  They 
sent  no  agents  to  Albany,  but  personally  saw  Piatt  in  his 
New  York  office.  The  corporations  not  only  made  heavy 
campaign  contributions  to  him  as  the  Eepublican  boss,  but 
to  the  Democratic  boss  as  well,  so  that  whatever  party  was 
in  power  in  the  State,  the  interests  of  the  corporations  were 
protected.  In  emergencies,  both  party  bosses  worked  to- 
gether to  give  the  desired  and  paid-f  or  protection.  Eoose- 
velt  knew  all  about  this  combination  of  Big  Bosses  and  Big 
Business  because  of  his  experience  in  the  Legislature,  where 
he  had  on  more  than  one  occasion  found  both  bosses  united 
in  defense  of  their  " invisible  government' '  against  his 
efforts  to  impair  its  unlawful  and  corrupt  privileges.  He 
entered  upon  his  duties  with  full  knowledge  of  the  evil  with 
which  he  had  to  contend.  His  two  years  in  the  Governor- 
ship mark  the  beginning  of  an  epoch  in  American  history, 
for  during  those  years  he  dealt  the  first  of  a  series  of  deadly 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK— FIRST  YEAR         115 

blows  at  the  "invisible  government"  which  ended  finally 
in  its  destruction  and  permanent  disappearance  from  Amer- 
ican political  life.  The  Big  Boss  is  no  more.  He  survives 
in  modified  form  in  Tammany  Hall,  and  perhaps  in  other 
local  organizations,  but  as  a  national  power  he  has  passed 
from  the  scene.  His  downfall  dates  from  the  advent  of 
Governor  Roosevelt  at  Albany,  as  this  narrative  will  show 
as  it  proceeds.  That  of  Big  Business,  as  the  partner  in 
political  and  business  misconduct,  dates  also  from  the  same 
advent,  for  a  new  era  in  governmental  regulation  and  con- 
trol was  inaugurated  then. 

Senator  Piatt  was  not  long  in  discovering  that  Roosevelt 
and  not  Piatt  was  thenceforth  Governor  of  the  State.  A 
short  time  before  the  inauguration,  Piatt,  who  at  the  time 
was  an  old  and  feeble  man,  asked  Roosevelt  to  call  on  him, 
which  he  did.  One  of  the  important  positions  that  the  new 
Governor  would  have  to  fill  was  that  of  Superintendent  of 
Public  Works.  Under  the  previous  administration  there 
had  been  gross  scandals  in  the  canal  construction  work, 
which  was  in  charge  of  this  department  of  the  State  gov- 
ernment, and  the  selection  of  a  new  head  for  it  was  the 
most  important  one  that  Roosevelt  would  have  to  make. 
When  he  called  upon  Piatt  the  latter  informed  him  that  he 
was  glad  to  say  he  had  found  an  admirable  man  for 
the  place,  had  offered  it  to  him  and  had  just  received  a  tel- 
egram from  him  saying  he  would  accept  it.  Roosevelt,  real- 
izing the  importance  of  the  crisis  thus  created,  replied  that 
he  was  very  sorry  but  he  could  not  appoint  the  man.  An 
explosion  followed,  but  Roosevelt  remained  calm,  saying 
again  that  he  must  decline  to  accept  any  man  chosen  for 
him  and  must  choose  one  for  himself.  He  politely  and 
firmly  maintained  his  position.  Piatt  ultimately  yielded 
and  Roosevelt  appointed  the  man  of  his  own  choice,  an 
eminent  engineer  and  veteran  of  the  Civil  War,  who  admin- 
istered the  office  with  honesty  and  efficiency.  Roosevelt 
also  appointed  a  commission  consisting  of  two  Democratic 
lawyers  of  high  standing  to  investigate  the  conduct  of  the 
Republican  officials  who  had  mismanaged  canal  affairs  and 


116  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

whom  he  had  declined  to  reappoint,  for  the  purpose  of  as- 
certaining if  they  were  criminally  liable  under  the  law.  His 
desires  in  appointing  this  commission  were  set  forth  in  a 
letter  which  he  wrote,  on  January  3,  1899,  to  Benjamin  B. 
Odell,  Jr.,  who  was  then  Chairman  of  the  Republican  State 
Committee  and  the  foremost  of  Piatt's  trusted  lieutenants: 
"I  would  like  to  appoint  a  counsel  to  represent  me  in 
this  canal  business,  and  in  view  of  the  possibility  and  even 
probability  of  failure,  I  want  to  get  a  strong  man,  one  who 
is  not  identified  in  any  way  with  my  interests,  so  that  there 
shall  be  no  possible  question  as  to  our  having  made  every 
effort  to  get  a  conviction,  so  far  as  the  effort  can  properly 
and  honestly  be  made.  With  this  end  in  view  I  think  I 
shall  appoint  X.,  of  Buffalo.  They  say  he  is  a  very  big 
lawyer,  and  I  believe  he  supported  Bacon  (the  Independent 
candidate  for  Governor) — a  harmless  form  of  entertain- 
ment on  his  part." 

The  investigation  was  made  and  the  Commission  re- 
ported that  it  would  be  inadvisable  to  prosecute  for  criminal 
conduct  because  of  the  impossibility  of  securing  a  convic- 
tion. 

From  the  beginning  of  his  administration  Roosevelt  con- 
sulted Piatt  in  regard  to  appointments  and  other  matters, 
meeting  him  generally  in  New  York  City  at  the  end  of  the 
week,  usually  at  breakfast  at  a  hotel  or  in  a  private  house. 
He  did  this  because  Piatt  being  in  Washington  and  Roose- 
velt himself  in  Albany,  it  was  the  most  convenient  meeting- 
place,  especially  for  the  Senator,  who  was  in  infirm  health. 
There  was  never  any  secrecy  about  these  meetings,  Roose- 
velt insisting  that  full  publicity  be  given  to  them;  never- 
theless they  were  uniformly  interpreted  by  the  Governor  's 
Independent  critics  as  affording  indubitable  evidence  of  his 
complete  subserviency  to  Piatt  and  as  proof  of  his  infi- 
delity to  his  virtuous  professions.  They  were  nothing  of 
the  sort.  Frequently  other  persons  were  present,  men 
who  were  interested  in  various  reform  measures,  and  the 
invariable  object  was  to  get  Piatt's  unwilling  consent  to 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK— FIRST  YEAR         117 

legislation  and  other  acts  which  were  distasteful  to  him. 
No  impartial  person  can  examine  the  records  of  Roose- 
velt's administration  at  Albany  and  not  reach  the  conclu- 
sion that  in  all  matters  of  serious  controversy  with  Piatt, 
at  these  breakfasts  and  elsewhere,  Roosevelt  came  out 
victor.    As  he  says  in  his  '  Autobiography ' : 

"My  object  was  to  make  it  as  easy  as  possible  for  him 
(Piatt)  to  come  with  me.  As  long  as  there  was  no  clash  be- 
tween us  there  was  no  object  in  my  seeing  him ;  it  was  only 
when  the  clash  came  or  was  imminent  that  I  had  to  see  him. 
A  series  of  breakfasts  was  always  a  prelude  to  some  active 
warfare.  In  every  instance  I  substantially  carried  my 
point,  although  in  some  cases  not  in  exactly  the  way  I  had 
originally  hoped.' ' 

Piatt  himself  bears  similar  testimony,  for  in  his  '  Auto- 
biography, '  he  says: 

"  Roosevelt  had  from  the  first  agreed  that  he  would  con- 
sult me  on  all  questions  of  appointments,  Legislature  or 
party  policy.  He  religiously  fulfilled  this  pledge,  although 
he  frequently  did  just  what  he  pleased.  In  consulting  me, 
Roosevelt  proved  himself  the  antithesis  of  X.,  who  repudi- 
ated every  contract  he  ever  made  with  me." 

An  impartial  and  just  verdict  was  pronounced  in  the  same 
matter  many  years  later  by  the  New  York  Times.  When 
in  September,  1918,  a  member  of  Tammany  Hall  was  made 
the  Democratic  candidate  for  Governor  of  New  York,  the 
Evening  Bost  reverted  to  its  original  contention  that  the 
breakfasts  were  proof  for  Roosevelt 's  subserviency  to  Piatt 
by  saying:  "Will  he  (the  Tammany  candidate)  come  down 
to  the  city  to  lunch  regularly  with  Murphy  (the  Tammany 
boss)  as  Theodore  Roosevelt  used  to  come  to  breakfast 
with  Piatt. ' '  On  this  the  Times  commented :  ' i  If  he  does, 
and  the  luncheons  don 't  do  Murphy  any  more  good  than  the 
breakfasts  used  to  do  Piatt,  there  is  not  much  for  us  to 
worry  about." 

Roosevelt 's  method  of  dealing  with  the  Senator  is  clearly 


118  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

shown  in  the  letters  he  wrote  to  Piatt  from  time  to  time. 
One  under  date  of  February  10,  1899,  when  the  question  of 
appointing  a  new  Surrogate  for  New  York  City  was  under 
consideration,  runs  as  follows: 

"Let  me  again  say,  my  dear  Senator,  what  I  know  you 
are  aware  of,  that  in  this  business  about  the  Surrogate,  I 
have  not  the  slightest  purpose  beyond  getting  a  thoroughly 
good  man  who  will  do  the  work  well,  who  is  a  Republican, 
but  who  is  also  a  man  thoroughly  satisfactory  to  the  bar 
and  to  the  people." 

Precisely  such  a  man  was  ultimately  appointed. 

Similar  ideas  of  public  service  are  expressed  in  a  letter 
which  he  wrote  on  January  26,  1899,  to  William  M.  Collier, 
whom  he  had  appointed  a  member  of  the  State  Civil  Service 
Commission : 

' '  I  am  sure  you  will  justify  my  choice.  I  believe  you  to 
be  a  thoroughly  excellent  man.  We  must  keep  the  manage- 
ment of  the  law  up  to  the  highest  point ;  I  want  to  make  civil 
service  reform  a  big  feature  of  my  administration. ' ' 

Early  in  his  administration  a  very  persistent  and  for- 
midable effort  was  made  to  induce  him  to  pardon  a  woman 
convicted  and  sentenced  to  death  for  the  murder  of  a  mem- 
ber of  her  own  sex.  Some  of  his  most  devoted  friends 
joined  in  this  effort,  among  them  Jacob  A.  Riis,  to  whom  he 
wrote  as  follows  on  February  8,  1899 : 

"This  is  a  woman  convicted  of  a  very  cruel  murder  of 
another  woman.  I  have  exactly  the  same  feeling  that  you 
have  about  womanhood  and  about  the  burdens  which  nature 
has  placed  upon  woman  and  the  duty  of  man  to  make  them 
as  light  as  possible.  For  instance,  where  a  poor  seduced 
girl  kills  her  child  to  hide  her  shame,  I  would  infinitely 
rather  punish  the  man  who  seduced  her  than  the  poor 
creature  who  actually  committed  the  murder.  But  there 
are  some  fiends  among  women,  and  I  hardly  think,  old  man, 
that  we  help  womanhood  by  helping  these  exceptions.' ' 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK— FIRST  YEAR         119 

To  another  of  the  petitioners,  who  had  clearly  aroused 
his  righteous  wrath  by  a  suggestion  of  political  conse- 
quences, he  wrote  on  February  21,  1899: 

"You  may  rest  assured  that  the  last  thing  that  will  in- 
fluence me  will  be  any  statement  that  no  man  can  become 
President  if  he  allows  a  woman  to  be  executed.  In  the  first 
place,  being  myself  sane,  I  have  no  thought  of  becoming 
President.  In  the  next  place,  I  should  heartily  despise  the 
public  servant  who  failed  to  do  his  duty  because  it  might 
jeopardize  his  own  future.' ' 

He  refused  to  pardon  the  woman  and  she  was  executed 
as  sentenced,  and  no  harmful  political  consequences  ensued. 

A  very  interesting  letter,  written  on  February  10,  1899, 
to  Andrew  D.  White,  U.  S.  Ambassador  at  Berlin,  gives  a 
frank  revelation  of  his  ambition  as  Governor  and  his  views 
of  his  own  political  future : 

1  '  So  far  I  am  getting  along  well  but  it  means  an  infinity 
of  hard  work  and  a  great  deal  of  resolution  with  no  small 
amount  of  tact  and  good  nature.  The  satisfaction  which  I 
have  is  that  I  don't  look  for  anything  more  in  politics. 
People  are  continually  writing  me  that  my  career  has  only 
begun,  and  they  make  me  almost  angry,  for  my  usefulness 
in  my  present  office  is  largely  conditional  in  the  fact  that  I 
don't  expect  to  hold  another,  and  so  nobody  has  got  a  twist 
on  me  in  any  way.  I  could  not  get  along  at  all  if  I  had  to 
try  and  shape  my  course  with  a  view  to  favors  to  come, 
either  from  the  people  or  from  the  politicians.  I  hope  to 
keep  the  party  united  and  to  make  a  good  Governor,  and  if 
I  can  go  out  having  done  that,  I  shall  be  more  than  con- 
tented.' ' 

One  of  Roosevelt 's  most  valued  and  devoted  friends  was 
James  C.  Carter,  who  for  many  years  was  universally  rec- 
ognized as  the  leader  of  the  bar  of  New  York  City  and  as 
one  of  the  ablest  and  most  highly  honored  of  its  citizens. 


120  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Mr.  Carter  had  written  to  the  Governor  a  friendly  criticism 
upon  some  of  his  public  utterances  and  in  reply,  on  June  7, 
1899,  Roosevelt  wrote: 

"I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  your  letter  of  the  2nd 
instant  and  genuinely  appreciate  it.  I  realize  just  the 
danger  that  you  speak  of  in  making  such  utterances  as  I 
make ;  but  it  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  an  almost  greater 
danger  is  that  of  hypocritically  stating  that  one  can  do  more 
than  one  intends  or  can  possibly  be  done.  I  have  gone  on 
the  principle  of  telling  the  reformers  just  as  I  tell  the  pol- 
iticians, exactly  what  I  will  do,  and  then  doing  it  rightnip  to 
the  handle.  Of  course  I  have  made  mistakes  and  I  will 
make  more,  but  I  don't  think  they  will  be  vital,  and  at  any 
rate  the  whole  game  will  be  played  on  the  table  and  not 
under  it — if  you  will  pardon  the  simile." 

The  dominating  achievement  of  Roosevelt's  first  year  in 
the  Governorship  was  his  success  in  compelling  the  Legisla- 
ture to  pass  a  law  taxing  as  realty  the  franchises  of  the 
public  service  corporations  of  the  State.  For  many  years 
valuable  franchises  of  this  kind  had  been  granted  by  the 
Legislature  without  provision  for  just  compensation  to  the 
State,  generally  through  arrangements  made  by  the  recip- 
ients with  the  party  bosses,  often  by  direct  bribery  of  legis- 
lators. Roosevelt  had  become  familiar  with  this  abuse 
while  member  of  the  Legislature  and  had  entered  upon  the 
Governorship  with  a  clear  conviction  that  the  abuse  should 
not  only  be  arrested  but  that  means  should  be  devised  for 
enabling  the  State  to  secure  the  income  of  which  it  had  been 
deprived.  He  refused  to  permit  the  grant  of  new  fran- 
chises on  the  old  terms  and  turned  his  attention  to  the  prep- 
aration of  remedial  measures.  The  most  valuable  of  these 
franchises  had  been  granted  to  street  railway  companies  in 
the  city  of  New  York,  made  enormously  more  valuable  by 
the  substitution  of  electric  for  other  power. 

A  bill  had  been  introduced  in  the  Legislature  of  1898  pro- 
viding a  form  of  taxation  on  public  service  franchises  but 
it  had  made  no  progress.     It  was  reintroduced  in  1899. 


GOVERNOR  OP  NEW  YORK—FIRST  YEAR         121 

Eoosevelt  gave  it  careful  examination,  and  became  con- 
vinced of  its  wisdom  and  justice,  or,  as  he  expressed  it, 
what  it  proposed  to  do  was  * '  a  matter  of  plain  decency  and 
honesty."  As  under  the  rules  of  the  Legislature  a  bill 
could  always  be  taken  up  out  of  its  turn  and  passed  if  the 
Governor  sent  in  a  special  emergency  message  on  its  behalf, 
Roosevelt  decided  to  take  that  course.  The  moment  his  pur- 
pose was  made  known  to  Piatt  and  his  machine  leaders,  they 
implored  him,  threatened  him,  and  used  every  means  they 
could  devise  to  turn  him  from  his  purpose.  They  assured 
him  that  if  he  took  this  action  he  could  never  again  be  nom- 
inated for  any  public  office,  as  no  corporation  would  sub- 
scribe to  a  campaign  fund  if  he  was  on  the  ticket,  and  all 
corporations  would  subscribe  to  a  fund  of  the  opposite 
party  to  beat  him. 

This  was  frank  recognition  of  the  real  cause  of  their 
wrath  and  dismay,  namely,  that  the  bill  aimed  a  deadly 
blow  at  the  very  center  of  the  Big  Boss  and  Big  Business 
combination,  for  if  it  were  to  pass  the  Legislature,  no  cor- 
poration would  buy  protection  in  future  because  of  uncer- 
tainty that  the  goods  would  be  delivered. 

Roosevelt  saw  all  and  listened  to  all,  but  declined  to  be 
swerved.  The  bill  had  passed  the  Senate  and  had  been 
"hung  up"  in  the  Assembly.  The  Legislature  was  on  the 
eve  of  adjournment,  and  the  opponents  of  the  bill  were  sure 
that  its  doom  was  sealed.  On  the  evening  of  April  28,  the 
Legislature  being  in  session,  Roosevelt  sent  an  emergency 
message  to  the  Assembly,  demanding  the  immediate  pas- 
sage of  the  bill.  The  machine  leaders  were  beside  them- 
selves with  wrath,  and  the  Piatt  Speaker  tore  up  the  mes- 
sage without  sending  it  to  the  Assembly.  At  seven  o'clock 
the  next  morning  the  Governor  was  informed  of  what  had 
occurred.  At  eight  o'clock  he  reached  his  office,  and  sent 
immediately  by  the  hand  of  his  secretary  another  emer- 
gency message  to  the  Speaker,  which  opened  as  follows: 
"I  learn  that  the  emergency  message  which  I  sent  last  eve- 
ning to  the  Assembly  on  behalf  of  the  Franchise  Tax  Bill 
has  not  been  read.    I  therefore  send  herebylinother  mes- 


122  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

sage  on  the  subject.    I  need  not  impress  upon  the  Assembly 
the  need  of  passing  this  bill  at  once." 

The  secretary  conveyed  to  the  Speaker  an  intimation  from 
the  Governor  that  if  this  were  not  promptly  read  the  Gov- 
ernor would  appear  in  person  and  read  it.  The  opposition 
collapsed  and  the  bill  was  taken  up  and  passed  by  a  large 
majority. 

The  outcry  against  the  bill  had  not  been  confined  to 
the  bosses  of  the  two  parties  who  had  united  for  its  defeat 
through  the  instinct  of  preservation.  A  large  portion  of 
the  press  had  also  opposed  it,  treating  it  as  a  demagogic 
measure,  conceived  in  the  spirit  of  unreasoning  hostility 
to  wealth  and  advocated  by  Eoosevelt  in  the  hope  of  gaining 
popular  support.  As  soon  as  it  was  passed,  the  party 
bosses  and  the  lawyers  of  the  corporations  affected,  united 
in  impressing  upon  the  Governor  their  profound  convic- 
tions that  it  contained  inadvisable  provisions  in  regard  to 
the  methods  of  levying  taxation,  urging  him  not  to  sign 
it,  but  to  wait  a  year  until  a  more  perfect  measure  could 
be  passed  at  the  next  session.  The  Governor  had  30  days 
in  which  to  sign  the  bill.  He  told  the  objectors  that  he 
agreed  with  them  as  to  the  defective  provisions,  but  that  he 
would  rather  have  it  with  them  than  not  have  it  at  all ;  that 
he  was  not  willing  to  trust  to  what  might  be  done  a  year 
later,  and  that  he  would,  therefore,  reconvene  the  Legisla- 
ture in  special  session  and  seek  to  have  the  bill  amended; 
that  if  the  Legislature  declined  to  amend  it,  he  would  sign 
it  in  its  present  form.  On  May  22,  1899,  he  issued  a  call 
for  a  special  session  in  which  he  set  forth  his  attitude  to- 
ward the  form  of  taxation  embodied  in  the  bill,  in  a  state- 
ment which  is  of  permanent  interest  as  showing  the  motives 
which  actuated  him  not  only  then  but  in  other  efforts  in  the 
direction  of  governmental  control  and  regulation  which  he 
made  a  few  years  later  as  President  of  the  United  States : 

"I  am  perfectly  well  aware,  as  Chief  Justice  Marshall 
says,  'The  power  of  taxation  is  the  power  of  destruction.' 
But  this  applies  to  every  species  of  property.     If  dema- 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK— FIRST  YEAR         123 

gogues  or  ignorant  enthusiasts  who  are  misled  by  dema- 
gogues, could  succeed  in  destroying  wealth,  they  would,  of 
course,  simply  work  the  ruin  of  the  entire  community,  and, 
first  of  all,  of  the  unfortunates  for  whom  they  profess  to 
feel  an  especial  interest.  But  the  very  existence  of  un- 
reasoning hostility  to  wealth  should  make  us  all  the  more 
careful  in  seeing  that  wealth  does  nothing  to  justify  such 
hostility.  We  are  the  true  friends  of  the  men  of  means ;  we 
are  the  true  friends  of  the  lawful  corporate  interests,  which 
do  good  work  for  the  community,  when  we  insist  that  the 
men  of  means  and  the  great  corporations  shall  pay  their 
full  share  of  taxes  and  have  their  full  share  of  the  public 
burdens.  If  this  is  done,  then,  sooner  or  later,  will  follow 
public  recognition  of  the  fact  that  it  is  done;  and  when 
there  is  no  legitimate  basis  for  discontent  the  American 
public  is  sure,  sooner  or  later,  to  cease  feeling  discontent. ' ' 

The  critics  and  opponents  of  his  course  in  securing  the 
enactment  of  the  bill  had  charged,  while  the  measure  was 
pending,  among  other  things,  that  he  was  acting  from  im- 
pulse and  in  a  reckless  disregard  of  consequences,  not  fully 
realizing  what  he  was  doing.  When  his  call  for  a  special 
session  appeared  they  declared  that  it  was  a  humiliating 
confession  of  ignorance  on  his  part,  of  his  own  inability  to 
frame  an  effective  measure.  On  this  form  of  attack  the 
Tribune  of  May  23,  1899,  commented  as  follows : 

"Governor  Koosevelt's  course  in  calling  the  extra  session 
of  the  Legislature  is  in  sharp  contrast  with  what  would  be 
regarded  as  'good  policy '  by  'sharp  politicians. '  His  en- 
gaging frankness  in  dealing  with  public  problems  takes 
their  breath  away. 

"It  is  easy  to  say  that  the  Governor  has  called  the  extra 
session  to  get  himself  out  of  a  scrape,  and  people  who  want 
him  to  be  in  a  scrape  are  quick  to  say  it.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  extra  session  was  called  at  the  suggestion  of  the 
franchise-holders. ' ' 

Efforts  were  made  when  the  special  session  came  to- 
gether to  outwit  and  defeat  the  Governor  by  various  de- 


124  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

vices.  One  was  to  withdraw  the  law  and  thus  prevent  him 
from  signing  it  in  its  present  form.  Another  was  to  pass 
amendments  that  would  nullify  its  effect.  He  defeated  all 
of  these  by  holding  the  original  bill  as  a  whip  over  the  heads 
of  the  machine  leaders,  saying  it  could  not  be  withdrawn 
and  he  would  sign  it  at  once  unless  such  changes  as  he  de- 
sired were  made.  The  bill  was  amended  as  he  requested 
and  was  passed  by  large  majorities  in  the  two  houses. 

No  sooner  had  it  become  law  than  the  lawyers  of  the 
corporations  who  had  asked  for  the  changes,  challenged  its 
constitutionality  in  the  courts  and  based  their  challenge 
on  the  changes  which  they  themselves  had  requested.  One 
of  these  legal  luminaries  was  David  Bennett  Hill,  at  various 
times  Democratic  Governor,  Democratic  Boss  and  United 
States  Senator.  For  six  years  the  constitutionality  of  the 
law  was  disputed  in  the  courts.  It  was  sustained  first  in  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  State ;  then,  on  April  23,  1903,  unan- 
imously sustained  by  the  Court  of  Appeals  of  New  York ; 
and,  finally,  on  May  29,  1905,  also  unanimously,  by  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  United  States.  Among  the  counsel 
assailing  the  constitutionality  of  the  act  were  several  of  the 
most  eminent  corporation  lawyers  of  New  York  City. 

When  the  final  decision  was  rendered  there  was  paid 
over  to  the  State  Treasury  taxes  which  had  been  withheld, 
amounting  with  interest  for  six  years,  to  more  than  $26,- 
000,000. 

In  addition  to  the  Franchise  Tax  Law  the  Governor,  by 
persistent  personal  effort,  secured  the  passage  by  the  Leg- 
islature of  1899  of  a  new  Civil  Service  Law  which  he  pro- 
nounced the  "best  in  the  Nation."  He  had  during  his  ser- 
vice as  Governor  continued  his  investigations  of  tenement 
house  conditions  in  New  York  and  had  secured  the  passage 
of  a  law  which  was  the  first  effective  exercise  of  real  and 
intelligent  supervision  of  industries  carried  on  in  tenement- 
houses.  It  abolished  "  sweat-shops ' '  from  New  York  City 
for  all  time.  "Not  a  single  law,"  he  said  in  reviewing  the 
Legislature's  work,  "has  been  put  on  the  statute  books 
which  ought  not  to  be  put  there,  and  not  a  single  appoint- 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK— FIRST  YEAR         125 

ment  had  been  made  which  ought  not  to  have  been  made." 
After  the  adjournment  of  the  Legislature  and  before  the 
special  session  was  called,  Senator  Piatt  wrote  a  long  letter 
to  Eoosevelt  which  is  of  interest  not  only  in  revealing 
Piatt's  mental  attitude  toward  the  Franchise  Tax  measure 
but  in  revealing  also  the  fact  that  in  forcing  the  Legisla- 
ture to  act  in  the  matter  the  Governor  had  not  consulted 
the  boss.    In  his  letter  the  Senator  said : 

' '  When  the  subject  of  your  nomination  was  under  consid- 
eration, there  was  one  matter  that  gave  me  real  anxiety.  I 
think  you  will  have  no  trouble  in  appreciating  the  fact  that 
it  was  not  the  matter  of  your  independence. 

"The  thing  that  did  bother  me  was  this:  I  had  heard 
from  a  good  many  sources  that  you  were  a  little  loose  on 
the  relations  of  capital  and  labor,  on  trusts  and  combina- 
tions, and,  indeed,  on  those  numerous  questions  which  have 
recently  arisen  in  politics  affecting  the  security  of  earnings 
and  the  right  of  a  man  to  run  his  own  business  in  his  own 
way,  with  due  respect  of  course  to  the  Ten  Commandments 
and  the  Penal  Code.  Or,  to  get  at  it  even  more  clearly,  I 
understood  from  a  number  of  business  men,  and  among 
them  many  of  your  own  personal  friends,  that  you  enter- 
tained various  altruistic  ideas,  all  very  well  in  their  way, 
but  which  before  they  could  safely  be  put  into  law  needed 
very  profound  consideration.  .  .  .  You  have  just  ad- 
journed a  Legislature  which  created  a  good  opinion  through- 
out the  State.  I  congratulate  you  heartily  upon  this  fact 
because  I  sincerely  believe,  as  everybody  else  does,  that 
this  good  impression  exists  very  largely  as  a  result  of  your 
personal  influence  in  the  Legislative  chambers.  But  at  the 
last  moment,  and  to  my  very  great  surprise,  you  did  a  thing 
which  has  caused  the  business  community  of  New  York  to 
wonder  how  far  the  notions  of  Populism,  as  laid  down  in 
Kansas  and  Nebraska,  have  taken  hold  upon  the  Republican 
party  of  the  State  of  New  York." 

The  Senator's  curious  use  of  the  word  " altruistic"  caused 
Roosevelt  much  amusement.    In  his  reply  he  assured  the 


126  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Senator  that  he  was  as  much  opposed  to  Populism  in  every 
stage  as  the  greatest  representatives  of  corporate  wealth 
were,  and  defined  his  real  position  as  follows : 

"I  do  not  believe  that  it  ^s  wise  or  safe  for  us  as  a  party 
to  take  refuge  in  mere  negation  and  to  say  that  there  are 
no  evils  to  be  corrected.  It  seems  to  me  that  our  attitude 
should  be  one  of  correcting  the  evils  and  thereby  showing 
that,  whereas  the  Populists,  Socialists  and  others  really  do 
not  correct  the  evils  at  all,  or  else  only  do  so  at  the  expense 
of  producing  others  in  aggravated  form,  on  the  contrary 
we  Eepublicans  hold  the  just  balance  and  set  ourselves  as 
resolutely  against  improper  corporate  influence  on  the  one 
hand  as  against  demagogy  and  mob  rule  on  the  other. 
I  understand  perfectly  that  such  an  attitude  of  moderation 
is  apt  to  be  misunderstood  when  passions  are  greatly  ex- 
cited and  when  victory  is  apt  to  rest  with  the  extremists 
on  one  side  or  the  other ;  yet  I  think  it  is  in  the  long  run  the 
only  wise  attitude.  ...  I  appreciate  absolutely  (what 
Mr.  Piatt  had  said)  that  any  applause  I  get  will  be  too 
evanescent  for  a  moment's  consideration.  I  appreciate 
absolutely  that  the  people  who  now  loudly  approve  of  my 
action  in  the  franchise  tax  will  forget  all  about  it  in  a  fort- 
night, and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  the  very  powerful  inter- 
ests adversely  affected  will  always  remember  it. ' ' 

When  preparations  were  in  progress  for  the  parade  in 
New  York  City  in  honor  of  Admiral  Dewey,  the  hero  of  the 
Battle  of  Manila,  Governor  Eoosevelt  wrote  on  August  8, 
1899,  this  characteristic  letter  to  Avery  D.  Andrews,  his 
former  associate  in  the  Police  Board  and  at  the  time  Adju- 
tant General  of  the  State : 

"Everybody  seems  to  be  united  in  wanting  me  to  ride 
at  the  head  of  the  militia  in  the  Dewey  parade.  What  do 
you  think  of  it  ?  If  j^u  think  well  of  it,  will  you,  in  the  first 
place,  engage  for  me  that  black  horse  I  rode  up  to  camp 
as  my  steed,  and  will  you  in  the  next  place  tell  me  what  I 
should  wear?  I  know  I  have  got  to  wear  a  black  coat  and  a 
top  hat.    Would  it  do  for  me  to  wear  a  black  cutaway  coat, 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK— FIRST  YEAR        127 

gray  riding  breeches  and  black  top  boots,  or  do  I  have  to 
wear  a  black  frock  coat,  which  is  an  uncomfortable  thing  to 
ride  in?  The  average  Governor,  I  suppose,  rides  in  gray 
trousers.  Is  this  necessary?  I  suppose  I  have  got  to  make 
up  my  mind  to  look  either  like  a  fake  riding  school  master, 
or  else  like  the  president  of  a  St.  Patrick's  day  procession 
on  parade.  Which  of  these  disagreeable  alternatives  is  the 
best?" 

His  experience  with  the  Franchise  Tax  question  had 
turned  Boosevelt's  mind  naturally  to  the  consideration  of 
trusts.  On  August  15,  1899,  he  wrote  to  Charles  F.  Scott, 
a  Kansas  friend : 

"I  have  been  in  a  great  quandary  over  trusts.  I  do  not 
know  what  attitude  to  take.  I  do  not  intend  to  play  a  dem- 
agogue. On  the  other  hand,  I  do  intend,  so  far  as  in  me 
lies,  to  see  that  the  rich  man  is  held  to  the  same  accounta- 
bility as  the  poor  man,  and  when  the  rich  man  is  rich  enough 
to  buy  unscrupulous  advice  from  very  able  lawyers ;,  this  is 
not  always  easy." 

In  the  midst  of  his  struggles  with  Senator  Piatt  and  the 
Legislature  he  began  during  his  first  term  as  Governor  to 
write  the  "Life  of  Oliver  Cromwell,"  completing  it  in  the 
summer  of  1899. 


CHAPTER  XII 
GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK— SECOND  YEAR 

Roosevelt's  second  year  as  Governor  opened  with  the 
fiercest  fight  that  he  had  yet  had  with  Senator  Piatt.  It 
arose  out  of  a  difference  of  opinion  between  the  two  con- 
cerning the  reappointment  of  an  official,  Payn,  who  was  one 
of  the  most  devoted  of  Piatt's  followers,  a  county  boss  in 
the  Piatt  machine,  and  a  thoroughgoing  old-time  spoils 
politician.  He  had  held  the  office  of  Superintendent  of  In- 
surance for  several  years  and  his  conduct  in  its  administra- 
tion, as  shown  by  investigations  which  the  Governor  had  in- 
stituted, was  far  from  being  what  it  should  have  been.  His 
term  was  about  to  expire  and  the  Governor  announced  in 
advance  of  the  meeting  of  the  Legislature  in  January,  1900, 
his  determination  not  to  reappoint  him.  Piatt  at  once  issued 
an  ultimatum  to  Roosevelt  that  he  must  be  reappointed  or 
he  would  fight  the  Governor,  saying  that  the  incumbent 
would  remain  in  office  anyway,  since  under  the  Constitution 
he  could  only  be  removed  with  the  consent  of  the  Senate 
and  he  would  continue  in  office  till  his  successor  was  con- 
firmed by  the  Senate,  and  he,  Piatt,  could  control  the  Senate 
absolutely.  Roosevelt  kept  his  temper,  allowing  Piatt  to 
do  the  threatening  and  blustering,  and  selected  a  candidate 
for  the  position  who  was  a  man  of  character,  a  Republican 
and  a  friend  of  Piatt's,  whose  position  in  the  party  was  such 
as  to  make  it  difficult  for  the  Senate  to  reject  him.  Piatt, 
in  a  stormy  interview  with  Roosevelt  in  New  York  City, 
refused  to  accept  the  man,  saying  to  Roosevelt  that  if  he 
insisted,  it  would  be  war  to  the  knife,  and  his  (Roosevelt's) 
destruction  and  possibly  the  destruction  of  the  party. 
Roosevelt  replied  that  he  was  sorry  he  could  not  yield, 
that  if  the  war  came  it  would  have  to  come,  and  that  he 

128 


GOVERNOR  OP  NEW  YORK— SECOND  YEAR       129 

should  send  to  the  Senate  the  name  of  his  chosen  candidate 
on  the  following  morning. 

Following  closely  on  the  heels  of  the  interview,  Roose- 
velt received  a  message  from  Piatt's  chief  agent,  asking 
for  an  appointment  for  the  evening.  Roosevelt  named  the 
Union  League  Club,  and  the  two  met  there.  The  agent 
went  over  the  same  ground  that  Piatt  had  covered,  declar- 
ing that  Piatt  would  never  yield,  that  he  was  certain  to 
win  the  fight,  that  Roosevelt's  reputation  would  be  de- 
stroyed, and  that  he  wished  to  save  him  from  such  a  lament- 
able smash-up  as  an  ending  to  his  career.  Roosevelt  re- 
peated his  decision,  and  saying  that  nothing  was  to  be  ac- 
complished by  further  talk,  arose  to  go  away.  The  agent 
repeated  that  it  was  Roosevelt's  last  chance,  that  ruin  was 
ahead  of  him  if  he  refused  it,  but  that  if  he  accepted  every- 
thing would  be  easy.  Roosevelt  shook  his  head  and  an- 
swered :  ' '  There  is  nothing  to  add  to  what  I  have  already 
said."  "You  know  it  means  your  ruin?"  said  the  agent. 
' '  Well,  we  will  see  about  that, ' '  answered  Roosevelt.  ' i  You 
understand,"  continued  the  agent,  "the  fight  will  begin  to- 
morrow and  will  be  carried  to  the  bitter  end."  "Yes," 
replied  Roosevelt,  as  he  reached  the  door,  adding  "Good 
night"  as  he  opened  it.  Before  he  could  pass  out,  the  agent 
exclaimed:  "Hold  on!  We  accept.  Send  in  Blank's  name. 
The  Senator  is  very  sorry,  but  he  will  make  no  further  op- 
position." 

The  name  of  Roosevelt's  candidate  was  sent  to  the  Senate 
and  confirmation  followed.  Piatt's  own  account  of  the  in- 
cident, as  given  in  his  i  Autobiography, '  shows  that  after 
the  struggle  was  over  he  was  able  to  take  a  humorous  view 
of  it.  Speaking  of  Roosevelt 's  ' '  whirlwind  fashion  of  clean- 
ing house ' '  at  Albany,  he  says : 

"He  threw  Superintendent  of  Insurance  Louis  F.  Payn 
out  of  his  job  so  quickly  as  to  send  that  official  to  me  with 
a  cry :  '  I  warned  you  that  fellow  would  soon  have  you  dang- 
ling at  his  chariot  wheel.  You  would  not  believe  me.  He 
has  begun  by  scalping  members  of  your  *  Old  Guard. '  He  '11 
get  you,  too,  soon.' 


130  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

"Roosevelt  told  me  that  he  proposed  to  remove  Lou 
Payn.  I  protested,  but  he  was  removed,  and  I  was  con- 
sulted about  the  appointment  of  his  successor.' ' 

While  Roosevelt's  private  struggle  with  Piatt  was  in 
progress  the  Independent  leaders  and  newspapers  were  de- 
manding that  he  must  make  open  war  on  the  boss  as  the 
only  way  of  political  and  moral  salvation  for  himself.  At 
the  very  moment  of  his  triumph  he  received  on  January  24, 
1900,  from  the  Rev.  Dr.  Parkhurst  a  telegram,  which  was 
also  given  to  the  press,  which  ran  as  follows : 

' '  If  you  distinctly,  uncompromisingly  and  frankly  throw 
down  the  gauntlet  to  T.  C.  Piatt  the  whole  State  will  stand 
by  you.    Choose  ye  this  day  whom  ye  will  serve.' ' 

Just  what  would  have  been  the  result  if  the  Governor  had 
followed  this  advice,  proffered  in  the  unruffled  serenity  and 
assurance  of  absolute  ignorance  of  actual  conditions,  was 
explained  by  Roosevelt  in  a  letter  which  he  wrote  several 
months  later,  on  June  11,  1900,  to  Henry  L.  Nelson : 

"I  needed  26  votes.  By  canvass  I  found  that  I  would 
have  two  Democratic  votes  for  me  and  21  against  me,  and 
that  I  should  lose  in  any  event  two  Republican  votes  whom 
Payn  could  control  without  any  reference  to  Piatt  or  the 
organization.  This  left  me  a  leeway  of  just  one  vote,  and 
it  is  of  course  unnecessary  to  say  that  in  any  mere  fight 
between  Piatt  and  myself  he  could  have  controlled  several, 
votes,  no  matter  how  strong  I  made  the  issue.  On  the  other 
hand,  I  had  succeeded  in  making  the  case  so  strongly  that 
as  long  as  I  resolutely  declined  to  mix  it  in  any  way  with 
a  factional  fight  in  the  Republican  party  and  simply  took 
the  ground  that  I  would  support  any  thoroughly  upright 
and  competent  man  against  Payn,  I  was  in  a  position  of  im- 
pregnable strength  and  could  win  out.  What  conceivable 
object  or  purpose  even  the  brain  of  Dr.  Parkhurst  could  see 
in  my,  at  such  a  time,  wholly  changing  the  issue  and  secur- 
ing the  irrevocable  retention  of  Payn  by  a  denunciation  of 
Piatt,  who  had  just  assented  to  my  proposition  to  take 


GOVERNOR  OP  NEW  YORK—SECOND  YEAR       131 

the  man  I  had  first  suggested,  it  is  impossible  for  me  to 
imagine.' ' 

This  incident  is  of  value  as  an  illustration  of  the  persist- 
ent inability  or  unwillingness  of  the  professional  Indepen- 
dents to  discover  any  merit  in  Roosevelt's  method  of  fight- 
ing evil  men  and  evil  practises  in  his  own  party.  They 
could  not  fail  to  see  that  he  was  accomplishing  results,  but 
because  he  was  accomplishing  them  in  his  own  way  rather 
than  in  the  way  that  they  told  him  he  should  adopt,  they 
saw  no  virtue  in  him.  Like  Dr.  Parkhurst,  they  were  con- 
stantly declaring  when  a  crisis  arose  between  him  and  evil 
powers  in  his  party,  that  he  was  "at  the  parting  of  the 
ways,"  and  that  if  he  did  not  select  their  way  he  would 
enter  on  the  broad  road  that  led  to  destruction.  He  inva- 
riably chose  his  own  way,  but  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  de- 
struction never  followed,  the  prediction  of  ruin  was  repeated 
with  undiminished  confidence  whenever  a  new  " parting' ' 
was  discerned. 

This  method  of  treatment  continued  with  unvaried  per- 
sistency after  he  became  President,  greatly  to  his  amuse- 
ment. After  a  particularly  enjoyable  instance  of  it  in  1902 
he  wrote  to  me  on  April  23  of  that  year : 

"One  delightful  feature  about  the  editorials  in  the 
Evening  Post  on  this  perpetual  'parting  of  the  ways'  is 
that  each  time  there  is  an  unconscious  assumption  that  they 
must  have  been  mistaken  the  time  before ;  for  I  have  always 
gone  down  what  they  consider  the  wrong  road,  yet  on  each 
occasion  they  speak  as  if  I  had  hitherto  been  doing  right, 
but  was  now  about  to  commit  a  criminal  blunder!" 

A  concise  and  comprehensive  statement  of  his  course  iri 
regard  to  Senator  Piatt  during  the  period  of  his  Governor- 
ship was  made  by  Roosevelt  in  a  letter  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  T.  R. 
Slicer  on  June  29,  1900: 

"I  have  never  done  and  shall  never  do  one  thing  I  ought 
not  to  do  at  the  request  of  Senator  Piatt,  and  the  whole  suc- 
cess of  my  administration  has  been  due,  as  much  as  to  any 


132  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

other  one  cause,  to  the  fact  that  I  have  been  able  to  work 
with  the  organization.  It  was  because  of  this  fact,  coupled, 
of  course,  with  the  fact  that  I  intended  resolutely  without 
wavering  to  have  my  own.  way  on  questions  of  deep  prin- 
ciple, that  I  have  been  able  to  carry  my  point  as  regards 
every  important  matter.' ' 

Writing  again  to  his  friend,  James  C.  Carter  of  New  York 
City,  on  March  19,  1900,  he  gave  a  general  statement  of  his 
tribulations  with  reformers,  enclosing  a  striking  quotation 
from  Macaulay: 

"The  other  day  I  came  across  something  in  Macaulay 
about  Scotland  in  1690,  which  runs  as  follows : 

"  'It  is  a  remarkable  circumstance  that  the  same  country 
should  have  produced  in  the  same  age  the  most  wonderful 
specimens  of  both  extremes  of  human  nature.  Even  in 
things  indifferent  the  Scotch  Puritan  would  hear  of  no  com- 
promise ;  and  he  was  but  too  ready  to  consider  all  who  rec- 
ommended prudence  and  charity  as  traitors  to  the  cause  of 
truth.  On  the  other  hand  the  Scotchmen  of  that  generation 
who  made  a  figure  in  Parliament  were  the  most  dishonest 
and  unblushing  time  servers  that  the  world  has  ever  seen. 
Perhaps  it  is  natural  that  the  most  callous  and  impudent 
vice  should  be  found  in  the  near  neighborhood  of  unreason- 
able and  impracticable  virtue.  Where  enthusiasts  are  ready 
to  destroy  or  be  destroyed  for  trifles  magnified  into  impor- 
tance by  a  squeamish  conscience,  it  is  not  strange  that  the 
very  name  of  conscience  should  become  a  byword  of  con- 
tempt to  cool  and  shrewd  men  of  business. ' 

' '  It  seems  to  me  that  this  paragraph  portrays  pretty  well 
the  conditions  which  make  self-government  so  difficult  in 
New  York  City.  On  the  one  hand  we  have  the  sodden 
masses  of  poor,  ignorant  and  sometimes  vicious  people  who 
are  the  ready-made  tools  for  Tammany  or  any  other  ma- 
chine. On  the  other,  we  have  good  men,  or  at  least  well- 
meaning  men,  who  have  permitted  the  practical  capacity  for 
self-government  to  atrophy.  In  Scotland  in  the  last  quarter 
of  the  17th  century,  the  existence  of  the  unreasonable  Puri- 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK— SECOND  YEAR   133 

tan  did  not  tend  to  make  public  life  better,  but,  for  the 
reasons  given  by  Macaulay,  to  make  it  worse;  and  it  was 
not  until  he  lost  some  of  the  very  qualities  of  which  I  com- 
plain in  many  reformers  to-day,  that  he  became  a  practical 
force  for  righteousness.  Heaven  knows  I  appreciate  the 
need  of  disinterestedness,  of  public  spirit,  of  all  that  we  as- 
sociate with  the  name  of  reform ;  and  it  is  because  I  do  ap- 
preciate the  need  that  I  hate  to  see  men  in  New  York  who 
ought  to  be  forces  on  the  right  side,  not  only  decline  to  go 
with  decent  men  who  are  striving  practicably  for  decency, 
but  by  their  course  alienate  shrewd  and  sensible  men  from 
all  reform  movements." 

During  his  second  year  he  gave  careful  consideration  to 
a  bill  which  had  been  introduced  in  the  Legislature  which 
aimed  to  limit  the  aggregate  of  insurance  that  any  com- 
pany could  assume.  After  a  thorough  study  of  the  subject 
he  reached  the  conclusion  that  whatever  evils  might  exist 
in  the  insurance  business  they  were  not  due  to  the  volume 
of  it  but  to  the  methods  employed  in  obtaining  it.  He 
reached  the  conclusion  then,  which  he  adhered  to  without 
variation  or  modification  afterwards  in  all  his  efforts  to 
regulate  and  control  big  business,  that  the  line  should  not 
be  drawn  on  size  but  on  conduct.  He  declined  to  favor  the 
pending  bill.  Several  years  later,  during  the  Governor- 
ship of  Mr.  Hughes,  a  bill  of  the  same  nature  was  made 
law  but  it  worked  so  badly  that  Governor  Hughes  himself 
signed  its  repeal  near  the  end  of  his  second  term. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
NOMINATED  AND  ELECTED  VICE-PRESIDENT 

Eakly  in  the  second  year  of  his  term  as  Governor,  in  fact, 
near  the  close  of  the  first  year,  Roosevelt's  peace  of  mind 
began  to  be  disturbed  by  proposals  to  have  him  nominated 
for  Vice-President.  On  December  29,  1899,  he  wrote  as 
follows  about  it  to  Senator  Lodge: 

"  Piatt  told  me  that  you  and  Chandler  wanted  me  nomi- 
nated; that  some  of  the  far- Western  Senators  wanted  me 
because  they  thought  I  would  strengthen  the  ticket  in  their 
States ;  but  that  the  general  opinion  was  that  it  would  not 
be  a  wise  move  for  me  personally  as  I  should  be  simply 
shelved  as  Vice-President  and  could  do  nothing,  for  if  I 
did  anything  I  should  attract  suspicion  and  antagonism. 
All  my  Western  friends  keep  writing  me  to  the  same  effect. 
I  do  not  think  I  have  had  a  letter  from  any  of  them  advis- 
ing me  to  take  the  nomination,  and  I  have  had  scores  ad- 
vising me  not  to  take  it." 

Writing  again  to  Senator  Lodge,  on  January  22,  1900,  he 
said: 

1 '  On  Saturday  Piatt  for  the  first  time  stated  to  me  very 
strongly  that  he  believed  I  ought  to  take  the  Vice-Presi- 
dency both  for  national  and  for  State  reasons.  I  believe 
Piatt  rather  likes  me,  though  I  render  him  uncomfortable 
for  some  of  the  things  I  do." 

On  February  1,  1900,  he  wrote  a  long  letter  to  Senator 
Piatt  giving  his  reasons  for  not  desiring  the  nomination : 

"I  can't  help  feeling  more  and  more  that  the  Vice-Presi- 
dency is  not  an  office  in  which  I  could  do  anything  and  not 
an  office  in  which  a  man  still  vigorous  and  not  past  middle 

134 


NOMINATED  AND  ELECTED  VICE-PRESIDENT     135 

life  has  much  chance  of  doing  anything.  I  have  thoroughly- 
enjoyed  being  Governor.  I  have  kept  every  promise,  ex- 
pressed or  implied,  I  made  on  the  stump  and  I  feel  that  the 
Republican  party  is  stronger  before  the  State  because  of 
my  incumbency.  Certainly  everything  is  being  managed 
now  on  a  perfectly  straight  basis  and  every  office  is  as  clean 
as  a  whistle.  Now,  I  should  like  to  be  Governor  for  an- 
other term,  especially  if  we  are  able  to  take  hold  of  the 
canal  in  serious  shape.  But  as  Vice-President  I  don't  see 
there  is  anything  I  can  do.  I  would  be  simply  a  presiding 
officer  and  that  I  should  find  a  bore." 

Writing  again  to  Senator  Lodge,  on  February  2,  1900,  he 
said: 

"In  the  Vice-Presidency  I  could  do  nothing.  I  am  a  com- 
paratively young  man  yet  and  I  like  work.  I  do  not  like 
to  be  a  figure-head.  It  would  not  entertain  me  to  preside 
in  the  Senate.     I  should  be  in  a  cold  shiver  of  rage  at 

inability  to  answer  hounds  like  P and  scarcely  more 

admirable  M and  H .  So,  old  man,  I  am  going  to  de- 
clare decisively  that  I  want  to  be  Governor  and  do  not  want 
to  be  Vice-President.' ' 

On  the  following  day,  February  3,  1900,  in  a  letter  to 
Senator  Lodge,  he  explained  why  Senator  Piatt  was  in 
favor  of  the  nomination : 

"I  have  found  out  one  reason  why  Senator  Piatt  wants 
me  nominated  for  the  Vice-Presidency.  The  big  moneyed 
men  with  whom  he  is  in  close  touch  and  whose  campaign 
contributions  have  certainly  been  no  inconsiderable  factor 
in  his  strength,  have  been  pressing  him  very  strongly  to 
get  me  put  in  the  Vice-Presidency,  so  as  to  get  me  out  of 
the  State.  It  was  the  big  insurance  companies,  possessing 
enormous  wealth,  that  gave  Payn  his  formidable  strength, 
and  they  to  a  man  want  me  out.  The  great  corporations 
affected  by  the  franchise  tax,  have  also  been  at  the  Sena- 
tor. In  fact,  all  the  big  moneyed  interests  that  make  cam- 
paign contributions  of  large  size  and  feel  that  they  should 


136  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

have  favors  in  return,  are  extremely  anxious  to  get  me  out 
of  the  State.  I  find  that  they  have  been  at  Piatt  for  the  last 
two  or  three  months  and  he  has  finally  begun  to  yield  to 
them  and  to  take  their  view.  Outside  of  that  the  feeling 
here  is  very  strong  against  my  going.  In  fact,  all  of  my 
friends  in  the  State  would  feel  that  I  was  deserting  them, 
and  are  simply  unable  to  understand  my  considering  it. ' ' 

Writing  to  Senator  Piatt  on  February  7,  1900,  he  ex- 
pressed a  decided  preference  for  some  other  position : 

"The  more  I  have  thought  over  it,  the  more  I  have  felt 
that  I  would  a  great  deal  rather  be  anything,  say  professor 
of  history,  than  Vice-President. ' ' 

On  April  3,  1900,  he  sent  to  Senator  Marcus  A.  Hanna, 
who  was  opposed  to  his  nomination,  his  reasons  for  not 
desiring  it : 

"Let  me  point  out  that  I  am  convinced  that  I  can  do  most 
good  to  the  national  ticket  by  running  as  Governor  of  this 
State.  There  will  be  in  New  York  a  very  curious  feeling  of 
resentment  both  against  myself  and  against  the  party 
leaders  if  I  run  as  Vice-President,  and  this  will  affect  our 
vote  I  believe;  whereas  if  I  run  as  Governor  I  can 
strengthen  the  national  ticket  more  than  in  any  other  way. 
I  do  not  think  we  can  afford  to  take  liberties  in  this  State. ' ' 

In  common  with  his  other  friends  I  was  strongly  opposed 
to  the  nomination  of  Eoosevelt  for  Vice-President. 
Throughout  his  service  as  Governor  I  had  been  in  constant 
and  intimate  association  with  him  and  had  been  fully  in- 
formed of  every  step  that  he  had  taken  in  his  efforts  to  put 
his  ideas  into  practise,  including  his  struggles  with  Sena- 
tor Piatt.  There  was  no  doubt  in  my  mind  that  desire  to 
get  him  out  of  the  State  was  the  chief  if  not  the  sole 
cause  of  the  movement  to  nominate  him  for  the  Vice-Presi- 
dency. His  usefulness  to  the  State  had  been  shown  to  be 
so  great  that  it  seemed  to  me  nothing  less  than  a  public 
misfortune  to  take  him  away  at  what  was  really  only  the 


NOMINATED  AND  ELECTED  VICE-PRESIDENT     137 

opening  stage  of  his  work,  and  in  the  hope  of  defeating 
the  movement,  I  wrote  letters  to  men  of  influence  in  the 
Republican  party  at  Washington  and  elsewhere  entreating 
them  to  oppose  it.  Among  others.  I  wrote  to  my  long-time 
friend  John  Hay,  then  Secretary  of  State.  He  was  a  close 
friend  and  admirer  of  Senator  Hanna,  and  his  reply,  which 
undoubtedly  reflected  the  views  of  the  Senator,  is  of  inter- 
est as  demonstrating  the  risk  involved  in  political  prophecy. 

Department  of  State, 
Washington,  April  14,  1900. 
My  dear  Bishop: 

I  have  your  letter  of  the  10th  of  April,  and  I  think  you 
are  unduly  alarmed. 

There  is  no  instance  on  record  of  an  election  of  a  Vice- 
President  by  violence,  and  I  think  people  here  are  looking 
in  quite  another  direction. 

Yours  sincerely, 

John  Hay. 

If  there  was  at  that  time  no  record  of  an  election  of  a 
Vice-President  by  violence,  a  record  was  soon  to  be  made 
of  the  nomination  of  a  candidate  for  that  office  by  precisely 
that  method. 

Only  a  few  days  earlier,  April  11,  1900,  Roosevelt,  who 
cordially  approved  my  efforts  to  secure  opposition  to  the 
Vice-President  movement,  wrote  to  me : 

"The  dangerous  element,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned,  comes 
from  the  corporations.  The  (naming  certain  men)  crowd 
and  those  like  them  have  been  greatly  exasperated  by  the 
franchise  tax.  They  would  like  to  get  me  out  of  politics 
for  good,  but  at  the  moment  they  think  the  best  thing  to 
do  is  to  put  me  into  the  Vice-Presidency.  Naturally  I  will 
not  be  opposed  openly  on  the  ground  of  the  corporations ' 
grievance ;  but  every  kind  of  false  statement  will  continual- 
ly be  made,  and  men  like  (naming  the  editors  of  certain 
newspapers)  will  attack  me,  not  as  the  enemy  of  corpora- 
tions, but  as  their  tool!  There  is  no  question  whatever 
that  if  the  leaders  can  they  will  upset  me." 


138  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

In  similar  vein  he  wrote  to  John  Proctor  Clarke,  on  April 
15,  1900: 

"  There  is  unquestionably  a  strong  desire  to  make  me 
take  the  Vice-Presidency.  Many  corporations  have  served 
notice  on  the  Republican  leaders  that  they  won't  contribute 
if  I  am  nominated  for  Governor,  and  that  they  will  do 
their  best  to  beat  me.  This  is  mainly  on  account  of  the 
franchise  tax,  but  also  on  account  of  various  other  acts 
which  I  am  bound  to  say  I  still  regard  as  extremely  credit- 
able— as,  to  be  frank,  I  do  their  whole  opposition,  if  it 
comes  to  that." 

'■  Senator  Piatt's  perturbed  state  of  mind  is  revealed  in 
the  following  letter  from  Roosevelt  to  Senator  Lodge,  on 
June  9,  1900: 

"  Senator  Piatt  is  not  in  a  pleasant  frame  of  mind  with 
me,  chiefly  because  of  the  franchise  tax.  He  told  me  last 
night  that  he  thought  it  would  lose  me  so  many  votes  as  to 
jeopardize  my  election.' ' 

On  June  12,  1900,  a  week  before  the  assembling  of  the 
National  Republican  Convention,  Roosevelt  wrote  to  Gen- 
eral F.  V.  Greene : 

"The  Organization,  pressed  by  the  corporations,  is  still 
very  anxious  to  have  me  nominated  for  the  Vice-Presidency. 
It  is,  however,  entirely  too  late  now  for  me  to  alter  my 
position.  I  will  not  accept  under  any  circumstances,  and 
that  is  all  there  is  about  it." 

The  National  Republican  Convention  met  at  Philadelphia 
on  June  19,  1900.  Roosevelt  attended  as  a  delegate  from 
New  York  and  was  genuinely  surprised  to  discover  on  ar- 
rival that  there  was  a  very  strong  sentiment  among  the 
delegates  in  favor  of  his  nomination.  Just  what  happened 
subsequently  is  best  told  in  letters  that  he  wrote  to  his 
friends  after  the  convention  adjourned.  Writing  to  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  on  June  27,  1900,  he  said : 

"The  nomination  came  to  me  at  Philadelphia  simply  be- 


NOMINATED  AND  ELECTED  VICE-PRESIDENT    139 

cause  the  bulk  of  the  enormous  majority  of  the  delegates 
were  bent  upon  having  me  whether  I  wished  it  or  not,  and 
all  the  more  because  Senator  Hanna  objected  to  it.  Sena- 
tor Piatt  wished  me  nominated  and,  as  you  saw,  I  absolute- 
ly upset  him  and  stood  the  New  York  machine  on  its  head, 
forcing  them  without  one  exception  to  stand  against  me 
and  support  another  candidate.  When  I  did  this  I  supposed 
that  it  completely  dissipated  the  possibility  of  my  nomina- 
tion. The  effect  was  just  the  opposite.  The  delegates  who 
had  already  been  saying  that  they  would  not  have  Senator 
Hanna  dictate  whom  they  should  or  should  not  nominate, 
now  merely  said:  'So  Roosevelt  has  stood  Piatt  on  his 
head,  has  he?  Well,  that  settles  it.  We  might  not  wish 
him  placed  on  the  ticket  by  Piatt,  but  now  we  have  got  to 
have  him  anyway.'  " 

To  Hon.  Geo.  H.  Lyman,  he  wrote  on  June  27,  1900 : 
11  Every  real  friend  of  mine  will  consistently  speak  of 
me  as  exactly  what  I  am — the  man  chosen  because  it  is  be- 
lieved he  will  add  strength  to  a  cause  which,  however,  is 
already  infinitely  stronger  than  any  strength  of  his — a  man 
absolutely  and  entirely,  in  the  second  place,  whom  it  is 
grossly  absurd  and  unjust  to  speak  of  in  any  other  capacity. 
This  is  the  attitude  which  must  be  assumed  in  the  most 
emphatic  way." 

On  the  same  date  he  wrote  to  Senator  Hanna  proffering 
his  campaign  services: 

"I  wish  in  this  campaign  to  do  whatever  you  think  wise — • 
whatever  is  likely  to  produce  the  best  results  for  the  Re- 
publican ticket.  I  am  as  strong  as  a  bull  moose  and  you 
can  use  me  to  the  limit.  One  side  of  the  problem  is  the  fact 
that  I  must  not  seem  to  neglect  my  duties  as  Governor  of 
New  York." 

While  the  nomination  had  not  been  welcomed  by  him, 
Roosevelt  accepted  it  philosophically  and  regarded  it  as 
marking  the  end  of  his  political  career.    He  said  to  me  at 


140  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

the  time  that  he  felt  neither  disappointment  nor  depres- 
sion ;  that  he  had  won  a  modest  amount  of  military  honor, 
had  been  Governor  of  New  York,  as  well  as  held  other  im- 
portant public  offices,  and  could  leave  to  his  children  the 
record  of  a  career  of  which  they  would  not  be  ashamed. 
As  for  occupation,  he  proposed  to  resume  study  of  the  law 
and  enter  upon  active  practise  of  that  profession.  He 
added:  "If  I  have  been  put  on  the  shelf,  my  enemies  will 
find  that  I  can  make  it  a  cheerful  place  of  abode. ' ' 

To  Edward  S.  Martin,  he  wrote  in  similar  vein  on  Novem- 
ber 22,  1900: 

"I  do  not  expect  to  go  any  further  in  politics.  Heaven 
knows  there  is  no  reason  to  expect  that  a  man  of  so  many 
and  so  loudly  and  not  always  wisely  expressed  convictions 
on  so  many  different  subjects  should  go  so  far !  But  I  have 
had  a  first-class  run  for  my  money,  and  I  honestly  think 
I  have  accomplished  a  certain  amount." 

Among  the  first  to  congratulate  Eoosevelt  on  his  nomi- 
nation was  Secretary  Hay  who  wrote  to  him  on  June  21, 
1900: 

"As  it  is  all  over  but  the  shouting,  I  take  a  moment  of 
this  cool  morning  of  the  longest  day  in  the  year  to  offer 
you  my  cordial  congratulations.  The  week  has  been  a  rack- 
ing one  to  you.  But  I  have  no  doubt  the  future  will  make 
amends.  You  have  received  the  greatest  compliment  the 
country  could  pay  you,  and  although  it  is  not  precisely 
what  you  and  your  friends  desire,  I  have  no  doubt  it  is  all 
for  the  best.  Nothing  can  keep  you  from  doing  good  work 
wherever  you  are — nor  from  getting  lots  of  fun  out  of  it. 

"We  Washingtonians,  of  course,  have  our  own  little 
point  of  view.  You  can't  lose  us;  and  we  shall  be  uncom- 
monly glad  to  see  you  here  again." 

To  which  Eoosevelt  replied  on  June  25,  1900,  from  Saga- 
more Hill : 

"Well,  I  now  join  the  innumerable  throng  of  New  York's 
Vice-Presidential  progeny  in  esse  or  posse.  I  should  like 
to  have  stayed  where  there  was  real  work ;  but  I  would  be 


NOMINATED  AND  ELECTED  VICE-PRESIDENT     141 

a  fool  not  to  appreciate  and  be  deeply  touched  by  the  way 
I  was  nominated ;  and  the  one  great  thing  at  the  next  elec- 
tion is  to  reelect  the  President,  and  if  my  candidacy  helps 
toward  that  end,  well  and  good. 

"If  only  the  New  York  machine  (which  I  had  to  stand 
on  its  head,  as  a  preliminary)  will  defer  its  policy  of  feed- 
ing grudges  fat  until  after  election !  I  earnestly  hope  they 
will  nominate  in  my  place  some  man  who  will  strengthen, 
not  weaken,  the  national  ticket. ' ' 

Before  finishing  his  duties  as  Governor,  Eoosevelt  had 
an  opportunity,  which  he  was  prompt  to  improve  to  the 
utmost,  to  show  his  mettle  as  the  Chief  Executive  of  the 
State.  On  the  eve  of  the  Presidential  election  in  November, 
1900,  the  Tammany  Chief  of  Police  issued  an  official  order 
to  his  subordinates  directing  them  to  disregard  orders  that 
had  been  issued  by  the  Chief  of  the  State  Bureau  of  Elec- 
tions, orders  that  were  essential  to  the  securing  of  an 
honest  election  in  the  city.  Roosevelt  had,  as  Governor,  no 
power  over  the  Chief  of  Police  but  he  had  power  over  the 
Mayor  of  the  city,  and  from  his  residence  in  Oyster  Bay 
where  he  was  at  the  time,  he  sent  the  following  letters : 

State  of  New  Yobk 

Oyster  Bay,  November  5,  1900. 

To  the  Mayor  of  the  City  of  New  York. 

Sir:  My  attention  has  been  called  to  the  official  order 
issued  by  Chief  of  Police  Devery,  in  which  he  directs  his 
subordinates  to  disregard  the  Chief  of  the  State  Election 
Bureau,  John  McCullagh,  and  his  deputies.  Unless  you 
have  already  taken  steps  to  secure  the  recall  of  this  order, 
it  is  necessary  for  me  to  point  out  that  I  shall  be  obliged 
to  hold  you  responsible  as  the  head  of  the  city  government 
for  the  action  of  the  Chief  of  Police,  if  it  should  result  in 
any  breach  of  the  peace  and  intimidation  or  any  crime  what- 
ever against  the  election  laws.  The  State  and  city  authori- 
ties should  work  together.  I  will  not  fail  to  call  to  sum- 
mary account  either  State  or  city  authority  in  the  event 


142  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

of  either  being  guilty  of  intimidation  or  connivance  at  fraud 
or  of  failure  to  protect  every  legal  voter  in  his  rights.  I 
therefore  hereby  notify  you  that  in  the  event  of  any  wrong- 
doing following  upon  the.  failure  immediately  to  recall 
Chief  Devery  *s  order,  or  upon  any  action  or  inaction  on 
the  part  of  Chief  Devery,  I  must  necessarily  call  you  to 
account. 

Yours,  etc., 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 

State  of  New  York 

Oyster  Bay,  November  5,  1900. 
To  the  Sheriff  of  the  County  of  New  York. 

Sir:  My  attention  has  been  called  to  the  official  order 
issued  by  Chief  of  Police  Devery,  in  which  he  directs  his 
subordinates  to  disregard  the  Chief  of  the  State  Election 
Bureau,  John  McCullagh,  and  his  deputies. 

It  is  your  duty  to  assist  in  the  orderly  enforcement  of 
the  law,  and  I  shall  hold  you  strictly  responsible  for  any 
breach  of  the  public  peace  within  your  county,  or  for  any 
failure  on  your  part  to  do  your  full  duty  in  connection  with 
the  election  to-morrow. 

Yours  truly, 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 

State  of  New  York 

Oyster  Bay,  November  5,  1900. 
To  the  District  Attorney  of  the  County  of  New  York. 

Sir:  My  attention  has  been  called  to  the  official  order 
issued  by  Chief  of  Police  Devery,  in  which  he  directs  his 
subordinates  to  disregard  the  Chief  of  the  State  Election 
Bureau,  John  McCullagh,  and  his  deputies. 

In  view  of  this  order  I  call  your  attention  to  the  fact 
that  it  is  your  duty  to  assist  in  the  orderly  enforcement  of 
the  law,  and  there  must  be  no  failure  on  your  part  to  do 
your  full  duty  in  the  matter. 

Yours  truly, 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 


NOMINATED  AND  ELECTED  VICE-PRESIDENT     143 

The  effect  of  the  letters  was  instantaneous.  The  Mayor 
directed  the  Chief  of  Police  to  rescind  his  order,  and  the 
Sheriff  also  took  prompt  action.  The  District  Attorney  re- 
fused to  heed  the  letter  addressed  to  him,  assumed  an  atti- 
tude of  defiance  of  the  Governor,  and  Eoosevelt  removed 
him  from  office.    A  quiet  and  honest  election  followed. 

Secretary  Hay  wrote  a  congratulatory  letter  to  the  Gov- 
ernor on  his  performance,  and  to  this  Eoosevelt  replied  on 
November  10,  1900 : 

UI  am  really  grateful  to  Croker  for  making  Devery 
commit  an  overt  act  which  put  the  whole  gang  in  my  power. 
I  immediately  took  some  secret  steps  which  have  never 
come  out,  getting  into  communication  with  the  Adjutant 
General  instantly,  so  that  in  the  event  of  need  I  could  have 
any  regiment  of  the  National  Guard  out  at  once.  I  believed 
that  they  would  take  water  as  they  actually  did.  If  they 
had  not,  I  would  have  taken  off  the  heads  of  the  Mayor, 
Sheriff  and  District  Attorney  within  48  hours — that  is,  just 
long  enough  for  the  legal  formalities  of  a  trial  to  be  com- 
plied with,  and  if  by  any  possible  construction  I  could  have 
gotten  at  Croker  and  Hearst,  I  should  have  done  all  that 
was  within  my  power  to  make  them  pay  to  the  last  cent 
for  any  misconduct,  which  really  would  have  been  due  to 
them." 

While  devoting  his  energies  unremittingly  to  his  duties 
as  Governor,  Eoosevelt  followed  closely  all  developments 
in  national  and  international  affairs  and  expressed  his 
views  thereon  freely  in  his  correspondence  with  friends. 
When  the  first  Hay-Pauncefote  treaty  was  published,  in 
1900,  he  took  a  position  in  regard  to  its  provisions  which 
foreshadowed  accurately  the  course  that  he  followed  later 
as  President  in  securing  the  fortification  of  the  Panama 
Canal.  Writing  to  Capt.  A.  T.  Mahan  on  February  14, 
1900,  he  said : 

"  As  you  know,  I  am  heartily  friendly  to  England,  but  I 
cannot  help  feeling  that  the  State  Department  has  made  a 
great  error  in  the  canal  treaty.    We  really  make  not  only 


144  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

England  but  all  the  great  continental  powers  our  partners 
in  the  transaction,  and  I  do  not  see  why  we  should  dig  the 
canal  if  we  are  not  to  fortify  it  so  as  to  insure  its  being 
used  for  ourselves  and  against  our  foes  in  time  of  war." 

He  gave  public  expression  also  to  his  disapproval  of  the 
treaty,  with  effects  described  in  the  following  letter  to  Dr. 
Albert  Shaw: 

"My  published  statement  about  the  canal  treaty  has,  as 
I  anticipated  it  would,  caused  no  little  trouble.  Hay  has 
written  me  a  confidential  letter  of  grieved  protest.  To  me 
his  position  is  simply  incomprehensible. ' ' 

To  Secretary  Hay's  remonstrance  Eoosevelt  replied  as 
follows  on  February  18,  1900 : 

State  of  New  York, 

Executive  Chamber,  Albany, 

February  18,  1900. 

I  hesitated  long  before  I  said  anything  about  the  treaty 
through  sheer  dread  of  two  moments — that  in  which  I 
should  receive  your  note,  and  that  in  which  I  should  re- 
ceive Cabot's  (Senator  Henry  Cabot  Lodge).  But  I  made 
up  my  mind  that  at  least  I  wished  to  be  on  record ;  for  to 
my  mind  this  step  is  one  backward,-  and  it  may  be  fraught 
with  very  great  mischief.  You  have  been  the  greatest 
Secretary  of  State  I  have  seen  in  my  time — Olney  comes 
second — but  at  this  moment  I  cannot,  try  as  I  may,  see  that 
you  are  right.  Understand  me.  When  the  treaty  is 
adopted,  as  I  suppose  it  will  be,  I  shall  put  the  best  face 
possible  on  it,  and  shall  back  the  Administration  as  heart- 
ily as  ever ;  but  oh,  how  I  wish  you  and  the  President  would 
drop  the  treaty  and  push  through  a  bill  to  build  and  fortify 
our  own  canal. 

My  objections  are  twofold.  First,  as  to  naval  policy.  If 
the  proposed  canal  had  been  in  existence  in  '98,  the  Oregon 
could  have  come  more  quickly  through  to  the  Atlantic;  but 
this  fact  would  have  been  far  outweighed  by  the  fact  that 


NOMINATED  AND  ELECTED  VICE-PRESIDENT    145 

Cervera's  fleet  would  have  had  open  to  it  the  chance  of 
itself  going  through  the  canal,  and  thence  sailing  to  attack 
Dewey  or  to  menace  our  stripped  Pacific  Coast.  If  that 
canal  is  open  to  the  warships  of  an  enemy,  it  is  a  menace  to 
us  in  time  of  war;  it  is  an  added  burden,  an  additional 
strategic  point  to  be  guarded  by  our  fleet.  If  fortified  by 
us,  it  becomes  one  of  the  most  potent  sources  of  our  pos- 
sible sea  strength.  Unless  so  fortified  it  strengthens 
against  us  every  nation  whose  fleet  is  larger  than  ours. 
One  prime  reason  for  fortifying  our  great  seaports  is  to 
unfetter  our  fleet,  to  release  it  for  offensive  purposes ;  and 
the  proposed  canal  would  fetter  it  again,  for  our  fleet  would 
have  to  watch  it,  and  therefore  do  the  work  which  a  fort 
should  do;  and  what  it  could  do  much  better. 

Secondly,  as  to  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  If  we  invite  for- 
eign powers  to  a  joint  ownership,  a  joint  guarantee,  of 
what  so  vitally  concerns  us  but  a  little  way  from  our  bor- 
ders, how  can  we  possibly  object  to  similar  joint  action  say 
in  Southern  Brazil  or  Argentina,  where  our  interests  are 
so  much  less  evident?  If  Germany  has  the  same  right  that 
we  have  in  the  canal  across  Central  America,  why  not  in  the 
partition  of  any  part  of  Southern  America?  To  my  mind, 
we  should  consistently  refuse  to  all  European  powers  the 
right  to  control,  in  any  shape,  any  territory  in  the  Western 
Hemisphere  which  they  do  not  already  hold. 

As  for  existing  treaties — I  do  not  admit  the  "dead  hand" 
of  the  treaty-making  power  in  the  past.  A  treaty  can  al- 
ways be  honorably  abrogated — though  it  must  never  be 
abrogated  in  dishonest  fashion. 

Yours  ever, 

Theodobe  Eoosevelt. 

A  few  weeks  after  the  election,  on  November  22,  1900, 
Roosevelt  wrote  this  characteristically  frank  and  generous 
letter  to  ex-President  Grover  Cleveland : 

"During  the  last  campaign  I  grew  more  and  more  to 
realize  the  very  great  service  you  had  rendered  to  the  whole 
country  by  what  you  did  about  free  silver.    As  I  said  to  a 


146  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Eepublican  audience  in  South  Dakota,  I  think  your  letter 
on  free  silver  prior  to  your  second  nomination  was  as  bold 
a  bit  of  honest  writing  as  I  have  ever  seen  in  American 
public  life.  And  more  than  anything  else  it  put  you  in  the 
position  of  doing  for  the  American  public  in  this  matter 
of  free  silver  what  at  that  time  no  other  man  could  have 
done.  I  think  now  we  have  definitely  won  out  on  the  free 
silver  business  and,  therefore,  I  think  you  are  entitled  to 
thanks  and  congratulations." 

It  may  not  be  inappropriate  for  me  to  add  to  this  just 
tribute  a  brief  account  of  a  personal  interview  which  I  had 
with  Mr.  Cleveland,  at  his  house  in  New  York  City,  in  the 
vrinter  of  1891.  It  was  soon  after  he  had  written  his  letter 
on  the  silver  question  in  which  he  had  come  out  squarely 
for  the  maintenance  of  the  gold  standard.  I  told  him  that 
I  had  been  watching  with  great  interest  the  reception  given 
to  the  letter  by  Democratic  newspapers  throughout  the 
country  and  had  been  surprised  by  the  small  amount  of  ad- 
verse criticism  it  had  aroused.  He  said,  as  nearly  as  I  can 
recall  his  words  and  I  am  sure  that  I  give  the  substance 
accurately : 

"Well,  I  have  been  tempted  to  say  something  of  the  kind 
for  several  months,  but  I  refrained  because  I  knew  if  I  said 
it  there  would  be  a  cry  raised  i  Oh,  he  wants  to  be  President 
again!'  Now,  Bishop,  I've  been  President,  and  a  man  who 
has  had  it  once  is  not  overanxious  to  have  it  again.  But 
the  time  seemed  to  have  arrived  when  I  ought  to  speak  and 
so  I  let  'em  have  it.'  Then,  with  a  complete  change  of 
manner,  and  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye,  he  grasped  me  by  the 
knee  and  in  a  confidential  tone  said:  Bishop,  you'll  find 
there's  some  pretty  good  politics  in  that  letter  too!" 

And  there  was,  for  it  secured  for  its  writer  a  unanimous 
nomination  for  the  Presidency  and  a  triumphant  reelection 
a  year  later. 

Koosevelt's  service  as  Vice-President  was  destined  to  be 
very  brief.    His  anticipatory  fears  lest  he  should  find  the 


NOMINATED  AND  ELECTED  VICE-PRESIDENT    14? 

duty  of  presiding  over  the  Senate  a  bore  were  never 
realized,  for  he  occupied  the  chair  only  a  week.  Writ- 
ing, on  March  16,  1901,  to  his  friend,  Cecil  Arthur  Spring- 
Bice,  he  thus  described  his  experience : 

"I  have  really  enjoyed  presiding  over  the  Senate  for  the 
week  the  extra  session  lasted.  I  shall  get  fearfully  tired 
in  the  future  no  doubt  and  of  course  I  should  like  a  more 
active  position." 

He  adhered  to  his  purpose  of  resuming  the  study  of  the 
law,  and  wrote  to  John  Proctor  Clarke  on  the  subject,  on 
March  29,  1901 : 

"Just  a  line  in  reference  to  my  studying  law.  I  have 
been  one  year  in  the  law  school  and  at  that  time  was  also 
in  my  cousin  John's  office.  Now,  could  I  go  into  an  office 
in  New  York — say  Evarts  &  Choate — or  study  in  New  York 
or  here  in  Oyster  Bay,  so  as  to  get  admitted  to  the  bar  be- 
fore the  end  of  my  term  as  Vice  President  ?" 

He  also  wrote  on  the  same  subject  to  Alton  B.  Parker, 
then  Chief  Judge  of  the  Court  of  Appeals  of  New  York, 
and  three  years  later  his  Democratic  opponent  for  the  Presi- 
dency, and  was  advised  by  him  to  study  in  the  District  of 
Columbia  Law  School.  He  accepted  this  advice  in  a  letter 
dated  May  31,  1901 : 

"As  soon  as  I  get  back  to  Washington  I  shall  begin  to 
attend  the  law  school  there  and  when  I  have  completed  my 
two  years'  course  and  feel  myself  fit  I  shall  apply  for  the 
examination. ' ' 


CHAPTEE  XIV 
PRESIDENT— EARLY  DECLARATIONS  OF  POLICY 

President  McKinley,  while  attending  the  Pan-American 
Exposition  in  Buffalo,  on  September  6, 1901,  was  shot  by  an 
anarchist.  Roosevelt  went  at  once  to  Buffalo,  as  did  also 
several  members  of  McKinley 's  Cabinet.  The  wound  was 
not  regarded  by  the  physicians  in  attendance  as  mortal  and 
for  a  day  or  two  the  President's  condition  seemed  so  favor- 
able that  they  declared  him  to  be  practically  out  of  danger. 
On  receiving  this  assurance  Roosevelt  joined  his  family  in 
the  Adirondacks.  A  day  or  two  afterwards,  September  14, 
1901,  he  went  on  a  long  tramp  through  the  forest,  climbing 
Mount  Tahawus.  As  he  was  descending  the  mountain 
and  was  resting  upon  a  shelf  of  land  which  overlooked  the 
surrounding  country,  he  saw  a  guide  approaching  on  the 
trail  from  below.  When  the  guioje  reached  him  he  handed 
him  a  telegram  saying  that  the  President  was  worse  and 
that  he  should  go  at  once  to  Buffalo.  He  was  ten  miles 
away  from  the  clubhouse  at  which  he  was  lodging,  and  it 
was  then  late  in  the  afternoon.  It  was  dark  when  he 
reached  the  clubhouse  and  it  was  some  time  before  a  horse 
and  wagon  could  be  procured  by  which  he  could  be  conveyed 
to  the  nearest  railway  station,  North  Creek,  which  was 
between  forty  and  fifty  miles  away.  The  night  was  dark 
and  the  roads,  being  the  ordinary  ones  of  the  wilderness, 
were  far  from  good.  He  and  the  driver  were  the  sole  occu- 
pants of  the  vehicle.  The  horses  were  changed  three  times, 
and  the  station  was  reached  at  dawn,  where  Roosevelt 
learned  that  McKinley  was  dead,  and  that  he  was  President 
of  the  United  States.  A  special  train  was  awaiting  to  take 
him  to  Buffalo.    On  the  evening  of  the  same  day,  in  the 

148 


PRESIDENT— EARLY  DECLARATIONS  OF  POLICY    149 

house  of  a  friend,  Ansley  Wilcox,  in  Buffalo,  he  took  the 
oath  of  office  in  the  presence  of  Secretary  Boot  and  other 
members  of  McKinley's  Cabinet,  and  a  few  other  persons. 
After  taking  the  oath,  he  said : 

"In  this  hour  of  deep  and  terrible  national  bereavement, 
I  wish  to  state  that  it  shall  be  my  aim  to  continue  absolute- 
ly unbroken  the  policy  of  President  McKinley  for  the  peace, 
prosperity  and  honor  of  our  beloved  country.* ' 

One  of  the  first  letters  to  reach  him  was  the  following 
from  Secretary  Hay,  written  from  Washington  on  Septem- 
ber 15, 1901,  a  letter  such  as  only  John  Hay  could  write,  and 
which  touched  Eoosevelt  very  deeply: 

My  dear  Roosevelt: 

If  the  Presidency  had  come  to  you  in  any  other  way,  no 
one  would  have  congratulated  you  with  better  heart  than  I. 
My  sincere  affection  and  esteem  for  you,  my  old-time  love 
for  your  father — would  he  could  have  lived  to  see  you  where 
you  are! — would  have  been  deeply  gratified. 

And  even  from  the  depths  of  the  sorrow  where  I  sit,  with 
my  grief  for  the  President  mingled  and  confused  with  that 
for  my  boy,  so  that  I  scarcely  know,  from  hour  to  hour, 
the  true  source  of  my  tears — I  do  still  congratulate  you, 
not  only  on  the  opening  of  an  official  career  which  I  know 
will  be  glorious,  but  upon  the  vast  opportunity  for  useful 
work  which  lies  before  you.  With  your  youth,  your  ability, 
your  health  and  strength,  the  courage  God  has  given  you 
to  do  right,  there  are  no  bounds  to  the  good  you  can  ac- 
complish for  your  country  and  the  name  you  will  leave  in 
its  annals. 

My  official  life  is  at  an  end — my  natural  life  will  not  be 
long  extended ;  and  so,  in  the  dawn  of  what  I  am  sure  will 
be  a  great  and  splendid  future,  I  venture  to  give  you  the 
heartfelt  benediction  of  the  past. 

God  bless  you. 

Yours  faithfully, 

John  Hay, 


150  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

The  new  President  left  Buffalo  for  Washington  on  Sep- 
tember 16, 1901,  and  on  the  following  day  he  called  a  meeting 
of  the  members  of  the  Cabinet  and  asked  them  to  remain  in 
office  which  they  consented  to  do,  Hay  with  the  others.  He 
attended  the  funeral  of  President  McKinley  at  Canton, 
Ohio,  and  on  September  20,  took  np  his  residence  in  the 
White  House.  In  accordance  with  an  invitation  which  he 
had  sent  to  me  on  his  journey  from  Buffalo,  I  was  his  guest 
in  the  White  House  on  the  evening  of  that  day,  no  one  else 
being  present,  for  his  family  had  not  arrived  and  no  other 
guest  had  been  asked.  We  had  a  long  and  intimate  con- 
versation in  which  he  talked  freely  of  his  policies  and  pur- 
poses as  President.  I  said  to  him  that  no  man  had  ever 
entered  upon  the  office  more  absolutely  free  of  all  obliga- 
tion to  any  one  than  he  had;  that  he  owed  his  possession 
of  it  to  no  one,  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  he  had  acceded 
to  it  in  spite  of  persistent  efforts  of  his  most  zealous 
enemies  to  prevent  him  from  ever  reaching  it ;  and  that  he 
would  enter  upon  his  duties  with  the  certainty  of  holding 
the  office  for  seven  years.  He  replied  at  once,  and  with 
great  emphasis : 

"I  don't  know  anything  about  seven  years.  But  this 
I  do  know — I  am  going  to  be  President  for  three  years, 
and  I  am  going  to  do  my  utmost  to  give  the  country  a  good 
President  during  that  period.  I  am  going  to  be  full  Presi- 
dent, and  I  rather  be  full  President  for  three  years  than 
half  a  President  for  seven  years.  Now,  mind  you,  I  am  no 
second  Grover  Cleveland.  I  admire  certain  of  his  qualities, 
but  I  have  no  intention  of  doing  with  the  Eepublican  party 
what  he  did  with  the  Democratic  party.  I  intend  to  work 
with  my  party  and  to  make  it  strong  by  making  it  worthy 
of  popular  support.' ' 

He  went  on  to  say  that  he  should  not  abandon  a  single 
one  of  the  principles  that  had  formed  the  basis  of  his  public 
career,  and  that  no  matter  how  powerful  might  be  the  in- 
fluences brought  to  bear  to  induce  him  to  waver  on  a  single 
one  of  them,  he  should  not  yield  a  hair's  breadth.    When 


PRESIDENT— EARLY  DECLARATIONS  OF  POLICY    151 

I  dwelt  upon  the  fact  that  influences  which  were  certain 
to  combine  against  him  were  far  more  powerful  than  any 
that  he  had  encountered  hitherto,  he  replied  that  he  was 
perfectly  well  aware  of  that  but  had  no  fear  of  ultimate 
victory  since  he  was  sure  that  the  people  would  be  on  his 
side,  and  he  should  always  let  the  people  know  what  he  was 
trying  to  accomplish. 

That  he  was  deeply  impressed  with  the  great  responsi- 
bilities which  had  been  placed  upon  him  was  apparent  in  all 
he  said  to  me,  and  the  same  feeling  found  expression  in  the 
letters  which  he  wrote  at  the  time.  To  his  friend,  Senator 
Lodge,  he  wrote  on  September  23,  1901 : 

"It  is  a  dreadful  thing  to  come  into  the  Presidency  in 
this  way;  but  it  would  be  a  far  worse  thing  to  be  morbid 
about  it.  Here  is  the  task,  and  I  have  got  to  do  it  to  the 
best  of  my  ability,  and  that  is  all  there  is  about  it." 

To  Richard  Olney,  who  had  been  Secretary  of  State  in 
President  Cleveland's  Cabinet,  and  who  had  sent  him  a 
letter  of  confidence  and  good  wishes,  he  replied  on  the  same 
date:  . 

"I  know  I  need  not  tell  you  that  I  appreciate  to  the  full 
the  burdens  placed  upon  me.  All  that  in  me  lies  to  do  will 
be  done,  to  make  my  work  a  success.  That  I  shall  be  able 
to  solve  with  entire  satisfaction  to  myself  or  any  one  else 
each  of  the  many  problems  confronting  me,  I  cannot  of 
course  hope  for,  but  I  shall  do  my  best  in  each  case,  and  in 
a  reasonable  number  of  cases  I  shall  hope  to  meet  with 
success.  At  any  rate,  I  want  you  to  know  one  thing.  I  can 
conscientiously  say  that  my  purpose  is  entirely  single.  I 
want  to  make  a  good  President  and  to  keep  the  administra- 
tion upright  and  efficient;  to  follow  policies  external  and 
internal  which  shall  be  for  the  real  and  ultimate  benefit  of 
our  people  as  a  whole,  and  all  party  considerations  will  be 
absolutely  secondary.' ' 

There  was  general  recognition,  not  only  in  Washington 
but  throughout  the  country,  that  Boosevelt's  accession  to 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

fe  Presidency  meant  the  opening  of  a  new  epock  in 
national  history.  The  Republican  party  had  been  for  many 
years  becoming  more  and  more  the  party  not  merely  of 
conservatives  but  of  reactionaries.  Its  policy  was  con- 
trolled by  the  great  industrial  and  commercial  interests 
which  had  grown  into  enormous  proportions  during  the 
preceding  quarter  of  a  century.  These,  with  the  allied  rail- 
way interests,  constituted  a  veritable  imperium  in  imperio, 
an  invisible  government  more  powerful  than  the  govern- 
ment itself.  The  representatives  of  these  interests  argued, 
with  all  the  sincerity  of  profound  conviction,  that  since 
under  their  guidance  and  through  their  development  the 
country  had  attained  the  greatest  prosperity  it  had  ever 
known,  it  was  only  just  that  the  country  should  be  given 
the  kind  of  government  most  favorable  to  them.  Their 
reasoning  had  never  found  more  complete  acceptance  than 
was  the  case  under  President  McKinley's  administration. 

The  first  note  of  protest  lifted  by  any  Republican  official 
and  leader  had  come  from  Roosevelt  while  he  was  Governor 
of  New  York.  The  entire  country  had  heard  it,  and  the 
powerful  interests  whose  dominion  it  threatened  had  com- 
bined in  a  determined  effort  to  render  him  powerless  by 
"placing  him  on  the  shelf"  of  the  Vice-Presidency,  thus 
retiring  him  from  public  life.  Knowing  the  man  through 
his  course  in  the  Governorship  they  knew  what  confronted 
them  when  he  became  the  Executive  of  the  nation.  The 
period  of  complacent  acquiescence  in  things  as  they  were 
had  closed. 

A  new  period,  of  action  in  the  field  of  the  things  that 
ought  to  be,  was  about  to  open.  Henry  Adams,  who  had 
known  Roosevelt  long  and  intimately,  in  his  very  remark- 
able book,  * '  The  Education  of  Henry  Adams, ' '  says  of  him 
as  he  entered  upon  the  Presidency : 

"Power  when  wielded  by  abnormal  energy  is  the  most 
serious  of  facts,  and  all  Roosevelt's  friends  knew  that  his 
restless  and  combative  energy  was  more  than  normal. 
Roosevelt,  more  than  any  other  living  man  within  the  range 
of  notoriety,  showed  the  singular  primitive  quality  that 


PRESIDENT— EARLY  DECLARATIONS  OF  POLICY     153 

belongs   to  ultimate  matter — the   quality  that  mediaeval 
theology  assigned  to  God — he  was  pure  act." 


The  record  of  his  first  year  in  the  Presidency  amply 
confirms  this  view  of  Roosevelt's  dominant  quality,  for  it 
is  crowded  with  action,  most  of  it  in  directions  hitherto 
carefully  selected  for  inaction. 

From  the  very  beginning,  the  new  President  left  no  room 
for  doubt  as  to  his  unchanged  attitude  toward  public  office 
and  public  duty.  He  stood,  as  he  had  throughout  his  career, 
for  honest,  decent  and  efficient  government  in  the  interest 
of  all  the  people,  and  whatever  change  was  necessary  to 
secure  it,  that  change  he  should  seek.  Regarding  his  policy 
towards  the  new  insular  possessions,  he  announced  on 
September  24, 1901,  in  reply  to  some  inquiries  by  politicians 
on  the  subject,  that  "  absolutely  no  appointments  in  the 
insular  possessions  will  be  dictated  or  controlled  by  political 
considerations."  On  September  26,  1901,  he  wrote  to 
William  H.  Hunt,  Governor  of  Porto  Rico : 

"In  dealing  with  the  Philippines,  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico 
my  purpose  is  to  give  Taft  and  Wood  and  yourself  the 
largest  liberty  of  action  possible,  and  the  heartiest  support 
on  my  part.  In  taking  up  the  question  of  the  lesser  ap- 
pointments I  want  to  consult  especially  you  threejn.en,  for 
I  have  the  utmost  confidence  in  each  of  you.  I  shall  certain- 
ly not  appoint  any  man  whom  any  one  of  you  who  ha&  to 
be  over  or  with  that  man  disapproves^)f." 

In  accordance  with  his  purpose  of  working  with  the 
leaders  of  his  party  whenever  possible  rather  than  against 
them,  he  wrote  a  cordial  letter  to  Senator  Marcus  A.  Hanna, 
of  Ohio,  requesting  an  early  conference  with  him.  Senator 
Hanna  had  been  universally  recognized  as  the  "power  be- 
hind the  throne ' '  in  the  McKinley  administration  and  there 
was  much  speculation  as  to  the  maintenance  of  harmonious 
relations  between  him  and  the  new  President  owing  to  sup- 
posed radical  differences  of  opinion  concerning  the  proper 


154  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

use  of  public  offices.  Senator  Hanna's  response  to  the 
President's  request,  made  from  Cleveland,  date  of  October 
12,  1901,  is  an  interesting  document : 

"  I  am  in  receipt  of  yours  of  the  8th  inst.  and  reply  that 
I  will  see  you  at  the  earliest  time  possible  consistent  with 
my  duties  here.  Have  had  a  full  talk  with  Mr.  Payne 
(Chairman  of  the  Eepublican  National  Committee,  and  sub- 
sequently Postmaster  General  in  Eoosevelt's  Cabinet) — 
there  are  many  important  matters  to  be  considered  from  a 
political  standpoint  and  I  am  sure  we  will  agree  upon  a 
proper  course  to  pursue.  Meantime  'go  slow.'  You  will 
be  besieged  from  all  sides  and  I  fear  in  some  cases  will  get 
the  wrong  impression.  Hear  them  all  patiently  but  reserve 
your  decision — unless  in  cases  which  may  require  imme- 
diate attention.  Then  if  my  advice  is  of  importance  Cor- 
telyou  can  reach  me  over  the  'long  distance.'  " 

The  politicians  of  the  Eepublican  party  had  early  infor- 
mation concerning  the  new  President's  ideas  about  the 
proper  use  of  public  office.  On  the  first  day  that  he  held  a 
reception  for  visitors,  September  21,  1901,  he  said  to  three 
Southern  Congressmen  who  asked  about  his  policy  in  re- 
gard to  appointments  in  the  South: 

"I  am  going  to  be  President  of  the  United  States  and 
not  of  any  section.  I  don't  care  that  (snapping  his  fingers) 
for  sections  or  sectional  lines.  When  I  was  Governor  of 
New  York  I  was  told  I  could  make  four  appointments  in 
the  army.  When  I  sent  in  the  names  three  of  the  four  men 
were  from  the  South  and  the  other  was  from  New  York. 
They  were  brave  men  who  deserved  recognition  for  services 
in  the  Spanish  War  and  it  did  not  matter  to  me  what  States 
they  were  from. 

"Half  my  blood  is  Southern  and  I  have  lived  in  the  West, 
so  that  I  feel  that  I  can  represent  the  whole  country. 

"If  I  cannot  find  Eepublicans  I  am  going  to  appoint 
Democrats.  I  intend  to  make  such  appointments  as  will 
induce  every  Southern  man  to  respect  the  Eepublican 
party.' ' 


PRESIDENT— EARLY  DECLARATIONS  OF  POLICY     155 

In  accordance  with  this  declaration,  he  announced  on 
October  7,  1901,  that  he  should  appoint  as  Judge  of  the 
United  States  District  Court  in  Alabama,  Thomas  G.  Jones, 
a  liberal  Democrat  and  an  ex-Confederate.  This  selection 
was  made  without  consulting  Senator  Hanna  and  in  viola- 
tion of  the  established  custom  of  consulting  him  about  all 
Southern  appointments.  The  Senator  wrote  asking  why 
there  had  been  such  haste  in  the  matter,  and  the  President, 
under  date  of  October  8,  1901,  replied : 

"The  reason  I  wanted  to  decide  about  the  judgeship  in 
Alabama  quickly  was  because  my  experience  has  taught 
me  that  in  such  a  case  a  quick  decision  really  prevents  bit- 
terness." 

On  the  day  following  the  appointment  a  letter  was  re- 
ceived by  the  President  from  Grover  Cleveland  commend- 
ing Mr.  Jones  for  the  position.  Replying  to  this  on  October 
9,  1901,  the  President  wrote: 

"I  hardly  know  whether  to  say  I  am  glad  or  sorry  that 
I  had  appointed  Mr.  Jones  Judge  before  I  received  your 
letter.  But  this  I  can  say,  that  it  was  the  greatest  gratifica- 
tion to  find  that  you  would  be  glad  of  the  appointment  and 
thought  so  well  of  him." 

About  this  period,  the  President  said  to  an  Illinois  Repre- 
sentative who  was  pressing  the  claims  of  a  constituent  to 
office: 

"I  want  it  thoroughly  understood  that  no  Presidential 
appointee  has  a  prescriptive  right  to  hold  office.  I  intend  to 
consult  only  the  public  welfare  in  making  appointments. 
As  long  as  a  man  proves  himself  fit  and  efficient  his  posi- 
tion is  safe.  W  hen  he  shows  hunselTunfit  and  inefficient  he 
will  be  removed." 

A  few  days  later  a  Senator  from  Illinois  who  was  urging 
the  appointment  of  a  constituent  to  a  position  said:    "He 

is  backed,  Mr.  President,  by  the  Illinois  organization " 

but  before  he  could  get  any  farther,  the  President  inter- 


156  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

rupted  him:  "I  wish  to  say,  Senator,  that  I  want  to  stand 
well  with  the  organization,  and  all  that,  but  I  wish  it  dis- 
tinctly understood  that  I  will  appoint  no  man  to  office,  even 
if  recommended  by  the  organization,  unless  he  is  wholly 
qualified  for  the  position  he  seeks  and  is  a  man  of  in- 
tegrity." 

Another  and  very  powerful  Senator  from  a  Western 
State  approached  the  President  with  a  request  that  a 
favorite  army  officer  be  advanced  to  the  rank  of  Brigadier 
General.  He  seemed  to  think  that  the  favor  was  to  be 
granted  merely  for  the  asking  but  he  found  the  President 
antagonistic.  He  was  forced  to  argue  the  matter  and  had 
started  on  that  line  when  the  President,  with  a  wave  of  the 
hand,  motioned  him  to  subside.  "It  is  of  no  use,  Senator, 
for  you  to  talk  any  longer.  I  simply  will  not  do  it  and  that 
is  all  there  is  about  it.  I  have  refused  every  Senator  who 
called  to  see  me  on  similar  missions,  and  I  must  refuse  you. 
It  is  not  worth  while  to  argue  about  the  matter." 

Senator  Bailey  of  Texas  went  to  the  President  with  a 
similar  request,  saying  that  the  promotion  which  he  sought 
was  favored  by  the  entire  Legislature  of  Texas.  "But," 
said  the  President,  "it  is  opposed  by  all  the  man's  superior 
officers."  "I  don't  give  a  damn  for  his  superior  officers!" 
exclaimed  the  Senator.  "Well,  Senator,"  said  the  Presi- 
dent, "I  don't  give  a  damn  for  the  Legislature  of  Texas." 
He  refused  to  promote  the  Senator's  man,  and  promoted 
an  officer  who  hailed  from  Texas  and  who  had  performed 
excellent  service  in  the  war  with  Spain. 

In  refusing  to  promote  army  officers  on  personal  grounds, 
the  President  put  an  end  to  an  abuse  which  had  been  grow- 
ing steadily  for  several  years.  As  he  said  to  the  Senator 
above  mentioned,  he  had  denied  similar  requests  from  other 
Senators.  One  of  these  was  a  Senator  from  Maine,  who 
was  joined  in  the  request  by  a  Representative  from  the 
same  State.  To  the  latter  Roosevelt  wrote  under  date  of 
November  9,  1901 : 

"General  X.  has  been  in  several  times  to  see  me,  more 
often  than  any  other  candidate  for  promotion.    He  has  an 


PRESIDENT— EARLY  DECLARATIONS  OF  POLICY     157 

excellent  record  but  seems  unable  to  understand  the  utter 
impropriety  of  doing  what  he  asks,  which  is,  not  to  pro- 
mote him  to  a  vacancy  but  to  punish  some  man  now  in  the 
service  by  forcing  him  to  retire  in  order  to  do  a  favor  to 
General  X.  It  is  barely  possible  that  some  case  would 
arise  of  so  extreme  a  character  as  to  justify  such  a  pro- 
ceeding, but  I  can  hardly  imagine  it.  There  is  no  warrant, 
whatever  for  doing  it  in  General  X.  's  case  as  an  exception, 
and  it  surely  cannot  be  advocated  as  a  general  policy.  It 
is  not  a  question  of  giving  General  X.  a  promotion.  It  is  a 
question  of  doing  him  a  favor  to  which  he  has  no  more 
claim  than  hundreds  of  other  officers,  by  doing  a  serious 
wrong  and  injustice  to  a  man  now  in  office." 

On  the  same  day  he  sent  a  similar  letter  to  the  Maine 
Senator. 

Writing  to  a  friend  in  Kansas,  on  October  9,  1901,  he 
stated  again  his  policy  in  regard  to  Southern  appointments : 

"I  want  to  get  hold  of  some  man  or  men  in  Arkansas 
who  will  give  me  an  absolutely  square  deal,  when  I  ask  for 
information  about  applicants  for  public  office.  Of  course, 
where  I  can  find  a  thoroughly  fit  and  proper  Eepublican  to 
appoint  I  want  to  appoint  him.  If  I  cannot  find  one,  then 
I  want  to  take  the  best  Democrat  there  is.  Under  no  cir- 
cumstances do  I  intend  to  make  an  improper  appointment 
or  to  put  an  inefficient  or  corrupt  man  into  office.  I  want 
to  have  the  same  high  standard  in  office  in  the  South  as  in 
the  North." 

Writing  to  Senator  Lodge,  on  October  11,  1901,  he  out- 
lined briefly  his  general  policy  on  economic  subjects  and  ap- 
pointments : 

"On  the  general  economic  questions  I  shall  do  just  about 
what  I  outlined  in  my  letter  of  acceptance  (as  nominee  for 
Vice-President)  and  in  my  speeches  on  the  stump,  unless 
some  good  reason  can  be  shown  why  I  should  change  at  any 
point.  In  the  appointments  I  shall  go  on  exactly  as  I  did 
while  I  was  Governor  of  New  York.     The  Senators  and 


158  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Congressmen  shall  ordinarily  name  the  men,  but  I  shall 
name  the  standard,  and  the  men  have  got  to  come  up  to  it." 

A  few  weeks  later,  when,  the  question  of  reappointing  the 
occupant  of  an  important  Federal  office  in  New  York  City 
was  under  consideration  and  the  President  was  known  to 
be  in  favor  of  a  change,  a  volatile  young  politician  who 
was  acting  as  errand  boy  from  Senator  Piatt  called  upon 
the  President  in  the  interest  of  the  incumbent.  In  the 
course  of  the  conversation,  the  visitor  threatened  the  Presi- 
dent with  the  vengeance  of  the  party  organization  if  he  did 
not  reappoint  the  official.  The  President  sprang  from  his 
chair,  saying  that  in  the  selection  of  officers  for  the  public 
service  he  was  guided  only  by  the  fitness  of  the  applicants, 
and  adding:  "If  you  come  here  to  threaten  me,  I  will  ask 
you  to  withdraw  immediately  and  let  me  go  on  with  my 
work."  The  visitor  began  to  stammer  an  apology  but  be- 
fore he  could  find  expression  he  found  himself  in  the  hall- 
way outside  the  President's  office. 

One  letter  which  the  President  wrote  during  the  first 
weeks  of  his  administration  is  worthy  of  record  as  showing 
his  early  desire  to  have  Germany  made  fully  aware  of  his 
attitude  on  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  It  was  addressed,  on 
October  11,  1901,  to  Baron  H.  S.  von  Sternburg,  then  Ger- 
man Consul  at  Calcutta,  India,  afterwards  German  Ambas- 
sador at  Washington : 
y^"I  most  earnestly  desire  to  have  Germany  and  the  United 

/  States  work  hand  in  hand.    I  regard  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
as  being  equivalent  to  open  door  in  South  America.    That 

V  is,  I  do  not  want  the  United  States  or  any  European  power 

/to  get  territorial  possessions  in  South  America  but  to  let 

South  America  gradually  develop  on  its  own  lines,  with  an 

open  door  to  all  outside  nations,  save  as  the  individual 

countries  enter  into  individual  treaties  with  one  another." 

Very  soon  after  Eoosevelt  's  accession  to  the  Presidency, 
representatives  of  the  powerful  financial  interests  already 
alluded  to  called  upon  him  and  sought  to  persuade  him  to 


PRESIDENT— EARLY  DECLARATIONS  OF  POLICY     159 

modify  his  views  in  regard  to  trusts  and  kindred  matters. 
He  told  them  frankly  that  he  should  not  do  so,  and  offered 
for  their  perusal  those  passages  on  such  subjects  that  he 
had  prepared  for  his  first  message  to  Congress  in  Decem- 
ber. Among  others,  these  passages  were  submitted  to  Sen- 
ator Hanna,  who  wrote  to  him  advising  him  not  to  give  so 
much  prominence  as  he  had  to  them,  advice  that  was  dis- 
regarded. In  a  confidential  letter  to  his  brother-in-law, 
Douglas  Eobinson  of  New  York  City,  on  October  14, 1901,  he 
gave  an  entertaining  account  of  one  valiant  but  fruitless 
effort  to  get  him  to  go  back  on  himself  and  his  record : 

"I  am  very  fond  of  X.  He  is  one  of  the  men  whom  I 
most  respect.  But,  to  be  perfectly  frank,  he  did  not  appear 
to  advantage  in  the  talk  he  had  with  me  on  the  evening  in 
question.  This  is  no  reflection  on  him.  He  was  occupying 
exactly  the  same  attitude  that  Y.  occupies  on  this  question. 
Both  of  them  are  men  of  the  highest  character,  who  are 
genuine  forces  for  good  as  well  as  men  of  strength  and 
weight.  But  on  this  particular  occasion  they  were  arguing 
like  attorneys  for  a  bad  case,  and  at  the  bottom  of  their 
hearts  each  would  know  this  if  he  were  not  personally  in- 
terested; and  especially  if  he  were  not  the  representative 
of  a  man  of  so  strong  and  dominant  a  character  as  W.  In 
plain  English,  what  W.  wanted  me  to  do  was  to  go  back  on 
my  messages  to  the  New  York  Legislature  and  on  my  letter 
of  acceptance  of  the  nomination  for  the  Vice-Presidency, 
as  well  as  on  theMinneapolis  speech,  which  was  by  no  means 
as  strong  as  either  the  messages  or  the  letter. 

"Now  if  I  felt  convinced  that  I  had  been  wrong  in  what 
I  had  hitherto  said,  or  even  if  I  were  doubtful  about  it, 
I  should  not  have  the  slightest  hesitation  in  announcing 
that  I  have  changed  my  mind ;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  I  was 
right.  I  intend  to  be  most  conservative,  but  in  the  interests 
of  the  big  corporations  themselves  and  above  all  in  the 
interest  of  the  country,  I  intend  to  pursue,  cautiously  but 
steadily,  the  course  to  which  I  have  been  publicly  committed 
again  and  again,  and  which  I  am  certain  is  the  right  course. 
I  may  add  that  I  happen  to  know  that  President  McKinley 


160  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

was  uneasy  about  this  so-called  trust  question  and  was  re- 
flecting in  his  mind  what  he  should  do  in  the  matter. 
X.  wanted  me  to  do  nothing  at  all,  and  say  nothing  except 
platitudes ;  accept  the  publication  of  what  some  particular 
company  chooses  to  publish,  as  a  favor,  instead  of  demand- 
ing what  we  think  QUght  to  be  published  from  all  companies 
as  a  right.' ' 

On  the  eve  of  the  assembling  of  Congress  the  President 
invited  me  to  the  White  House,  saying  that  he  would  like 
to  have  me  go  over  the  message.  After  reaching  Washing- 
ton I  called  upon  John  Hay,  Secretary  of  State,  who  had 
been  my  honored  and  valued  friend  for  many  years.  When 
I  said  to  him  that  I  was  going  to  read  the  message,  he  re- 
marked: "You  will  be  greatly  interested.  The  President 
has  written  every  word  of  it  himself.  Under  McKinley, 
all  of  us  in  the  Cabinet  contributed  portions  relating  to 
matters  in  our  departments ;  the  message  was  thus  a  com- 
posite document.  Eoosevelt  has  written  the  whole  of  his 
himself;  it  is  the  most  individual  message  since  Lincoln.,, 

The  message  had  been  awaited  with  great  interest,  not 
only  by  the  members  of  both  houses  of  Congress,  but  by 
the  general  public  as  well,  because  of  the  universal  recog- 
nition of  the  entry  of  a  new  force  in  national  administra- 
tion. It  was  the  first  Presidential  message  sent  to  Con- 
gress in  print  rather  than  in  script.  This  was  a  new  de- 
parture, ordered  by  Eoosevelt,  as  in  keeping  with  the  times. 
His  action  caused  mild  comment  at  the  time,  and  was  the 
forerunner  of  a  much  more  radical  departure  five  years 
later,  which  caused  far  more  agitated  comment,  when  he 
sent  in  a  special  message  illustrated  with  photographic 
reproductions,  giving  the  results  of  his  trip  to  Panama  to 
inspect  the  canal  work  which  had  just  begun. 

The  reception  of  the  message  by  Congress  revealed  the 
deep  interest  with  which  it  had  been  awaited.  The  account 
sent  out  to  the  country  by  the  Associated  Press  read : 

"It  was  listened  to  with  marked  respect  in  the  Senate. 
Not  in  many  years  have  the  members  of  the  House  listened 


PRESIDENT— EARLY  DECLARATIONS  OF  POLICY     161 

with  such  rapt  attention  to  the  annual  message  of  a  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  as  they  did  to-day  to  the  reading 
of  the  first  message  of  President  Eoosevelt.  Every  word 
was  followed  intently  from  the  announcement  of  the  tragic 
death  of  President  McKinley  in  the  opening  sentence,  to 
the  expression  of  the  closing  wish  that  the  relations  of  the 
United  States  with  the  world  should  continue  peaceful.  The 
reading  occupied  two  hours,  but  not  over  a  dozen  members 
left  their  seats  until  it  was  finished.  Several  times  there 
was  applause,  and  at  the  close  there  was  an  enthusiastic 
demonstration  on  the  Republican  side." 

The  Washington  correspondent  of  the  Chicago  Record- 
Herald  wrote : 

" President  Roosevelt's  message  to  Congress  has  one  uni- 
versal and  enthusiastic  approval  at  the  National  Capital. 
Not  for  many  years  has  a  similar  State  paper  aroused 
greater  interest  or  met  with  warmer  reception.  The  praise 
accorded  it  comes  from  men  of  both  political  parties. 

"Usually  the  annual  message  of  a  President  is  treated 
with  scant  courtesy  by  the  commoners.  They  listen  a  while, 
then  succumb  to  the  allurement  of  the  smoking-room  or 
restaurant.  To-day  they  sat  still  and  when  the  end  came 
there  was  applause  loud  and  hearty.  Democrats  joined  in 
it,  which  they  had  a  right  to  do,  for  he  is  their  President, 
too ;  and  in  all  the  20,000  words  they  had  searched  in  vain 
for  the  party  leader,  the  politician,  the  mere  phrase-maker. 
They  knew  they  had  listened  to  a  man  who  thinks,  to  a  man 
who  can  write,  to  a  man  who  writes  well  and  clearly  because 
he  thinks  well  and  clearly;  and  every  word  of  it  from  the 
head  of  the  Government,  not  a  word  from  the  head  of  a 
political  organization." 

There  was  in  the  message  an  entirely  unmodified  re- 
affirmation of  his  previously  expressed  views  about  trusts. 
A  few  of  the  more  important  passages  only  are  cited  here, 
as  the  full  text  is  available  in  the  volumes  of  his  public 
papers: 


162  THEODOEE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

"  There  is  a  widespread  conviction  in  the  minds  of  the 
American  people  that  the  great  corporations  known  as 
trusts  are  in  certain  of  their  features  and  tendencies  hurt- 
ful to  the  general  welfares  This  springs  from  no  spirit 
of  envy  or  uncharitableness,  nor  lack  of  pride  in  the  great 
industrial  achievements  that  have  placed  this  country  at  the 
head  of  the  nations  struggling  for  commercial  supremacy. 
It  does  not  rest  upon  a  lack  of  intelligent  appreciation  of 
the  necessity  of  meeting  changing  conditions  of  trade  with 
new  methods,  nor  upon  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  combina- 
tion of  capital  in  the  effort  to  accomplish  great  things  is 
necessary  when  the  world's  progress  demands  that  great 
things  be  done.  It  is  based  upon  sincere  conviction  that 
combination  and  concentration  should  be,  not  prohibited, 
but  supervised  and  within  reasonable  limits  controlled ;  and 
in  my  judgment  this  conviction  is  right. ' ' 

"Great  corporations  exist  only  because  they  are  created 
and  safeguarded  by  our  institutions ;  and  it  is  therefore  our 
right  and  duty  to  see  that  they  work  in  harmony  with  these 
institutions." 

i  ■  The  first  essential  in  determining  how  to  deal  with  the 
great  industrial  combinations  is  knowledge  of  the  facts — 
publicity.  In  the  interest  of  the  public,  the  Government 
should  have  the  right  to  inspect  and  examine  the  workings 
of  the  great  corporations  engaged  in  interstate  business.,, 

' l  There  is  utter  lack  of  uniformity  in  the  State  laws  about 
them.  Therefore,  in  the  interest  of  the  whole  people,  the 
Nation  should,  without  interfering  with  the  power  of  the 
States  in  the  matter  itself,  also  assume  power  of  super- 
vision and  regulation  over  all  corporations  doing  an  inter- 
state business.' ' 

He  recommended  the  creation  of  a  new  Cabinet  officer, 
to  be  called  the  Secretary  of  Commerce  and  Industries,  and 
suggested  the  adoption  of  a  Constitutional  Amendment 


PRESIDENT— EARLY  DECLARATIONS  OF  POLICY    163 

giving  powers  of  regulation  and  control  of  corporations  in 
case  such  powers  could  not  be  exercised  under  authority  of 
Congress. 

Soon  after  he  became  President  the  following  amusing 
correspondence  passed  between  him  and  his  long-time  and 
cherished  friend,  Owen  Wister: 

Monday,  September  23,  1901. 
Bear  Theodore:    I  don't  know  the  crime  of  yours  which 
this  earnest  ass  reveals.    I  shall  not  answer  him  because 
silence  has  a  cumulative  eloquence  which  I  prefer.     But 
make  yourself  gay  over  the  solemn  screed. 

Ever  yours, 
0.  W. 
(Enclosing  the  following  letter) 

Boston,  Mass.,  September  22,  1901. 
Owen  Wister,  Esq., 
Dear  Sir: 

I  observe,  at  the  end  of  an  article  bearing  your  signature, 
the  following: 

"He  (Theodore  Eoosevelt)  has  striven  in  his  books  to 
do  honor  to  great  Americans  in  the  past." 

I  am  informed,  on  authority  that  seems  conclusive,  that 
Mr.  Roosevelt,  in  one  of  his  works,  speaks  of  Thomas  Paine 
as  a  "dirty  little  Atheist":  that,  on  having  it  proven  to 
him  by  a  more  careful,  or  more  truthful  historian,  that  in 
these  three  words  he  had  made  three  mis-statements  (or  a 
triple  misf-statement),  and  that  Mr.  Paine  was  neither 
"dirty,"  "little,"  or  "Atheist,"  he  has  never  made  for 
them  any  apology,  correction,  or  even  withdrawal. 

For  any  other  than  an  illiterate  man  to  declare  Paine  to 
be  an  atheist,  seems  impossible ;  for  an  educated  historian 
to  do  so,  when  page  after  page  of  his  best  known  work  is 
devoted  to  argument  in  favor  of  the  existence  of  a  God, 
seems  hardly  compatible  with  honesty. 

Like  Mr.  Roosevelt,  I  have  no  agreement  or  even  sym- 
pathy with  Paine 's  religious  ideas;  but,  unlike  him,  I  do 
not  consider  disagreement  with  them  a  legitimate  excuse 


164  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

for  libelling  and  vilifying  one  of  the  greatest  men  of  his 
time. 

In  the  opinion  of  thoughtful  scholars,  Mr.  Koosevelt's 
ignorant  and  spiteful  mis-statements  about  Thomas  Paine 
effectually  discredit  him  as  a  historian ;  and  they  seem  also 
to  contradict  the  paragraph  from  your  article,  which  I 
quote  at  the  beginning  of  this  letter. 

Yours  truly, 

P.  G.  P . 

Personal. 

September  25,  1901. 
Dear  Dan: 

This  is  delightful.  I  ought  not  to  have  used  the  exact 
word  atheist.  He  admitted  the  existence  of  an  unknown 
God,  but  denied  there  was  a  God  of  the  Christians.  As  to 
whether  he  was  dirty  or  not,  it  is  a  mere  matter  of  private 
judgment.  I  was  recording  in  the  sentence  the  fact  that  he 
had  stayed  several  weeks  in  bed  without  getting  out  for 
any  purpose,  and  that  as  a  consequence  a  swine  in  a  sty 
was  physically  clean  by  comparison. 

Faithfully  yours, 

Theodore  Eoosevelt. 


CHAPTER  XV 
THE  BOOKER  WASHINGTON  INCIDENT 

No  act  of  Roosevelt  during  his  entire  career  in  the  Presi- 
dency was  more  thoroughly  characteristic  or  created  a 
greater  commotion  throughout  the  land  than  his  having 
Booker  T.  Washington,  the  negro  educator  and  orator,  as 
his  guest  at  dinner  in  the  White  House  on  October  18, 1901. 
The  news  of  it  roused  the  South  to  fury,  and  even  in  the 
North  there  was  a  division  of  opinion  in  regard  to  the  pro- 
priety of  the  act.  That  Roosevelt  anticipated  no  such  out- 
burst of  disapproval  when  he  invited  Mr.  Washington,  I 
have  personal  knowledge.  I  had  been  spending  a  day  and 
a  night  with  him  in  the  White  House  and  on  the  morning 
of  the  18th  he  asked  me  if  I  could  not  stay  over  another 
night,  saying  that  Booker  Washington  was  coming  to  dinner 
and  he  would  like  to  have  me  meet  him.  I  replied  that  I  was 
extremely  sorry  I  could  not,  for  there  was  no  man  in  the 
country  whom  I  respected  more  highly  or  whom  I  would 
more  gladly  meet,  but  it  was  imperative  that  I  return  to 
New  York.  Neither  one  of  us  alluded  to  Washington's 
color,  and  it  did  not  occur  to  me  for  a  moment  that  there 
could  be  any  objection  to  his  presence  at  the  White  House 
table.  No  intimation  of  doubt  on  the  point  came  from  the 
President,  but  in  a  letter  which  I  shall  quote  he  says  he 
felt  a  moment 's  qualm.  When  the  storm  burst  I  wrote  him 
expressing  my  astonishment,  and  in  reply  he  said:  "I 
really  felt  melancholy  for  the  South  at  the  way  the 
Southerners  behaved  in  the  matter.' ' 

A  few  weeks  later,  November  8, 1901,  he  wrote  a  letter  on 
the  subject  to  Albion  W.  Tourgee,  who  was  the  United 
States  Consul  at  Bordeaux,  France.    Mr.  Tourgee  was  an 

165 


166  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

American  lawyer  and  jurist  and  a  veteran  of  the  Civil  War, 
who  had  acquired  wide  fame  as  the  author  of  a  book  on  the 
reconstruction  of  the  South  after  the  war,  entitled  'A 
Fool's  Errand.'  He  had. written  in  remonstrance  to  the 
President  because  of  his  general  policy  toward  the  negro. 
Koosevelt's  letter,  aside  from  its  reference  to  the  Booker 
Washington  incident,  is  of  interest  and  value  because  of 
its  impressive  statement  of  his  views  upon  the  entire  negro 
problem.     I  quote  the  following  passages: 

i ' When  I  asked  Booker  T.  Washington  to  dinner  I  did 
not  devote  very  much  thought  to  the  matter  one  way  or  the 
other.  I  respect  him  greatly  and  believe  in  the  work  he  has 
done.  I  have  consulted  so  much  with  him  it  seemed  to  me 
that  it  was  natural  to  ask  him  to  dinner  to  talk  over  this 
work,  and  the  very  fact  that  I  felt  a  moment's  qualm  on 
inviting  him  because  of  his  color  made  me  ashamed  of  my- 
self and  made  me  hasten  to  send  the  invitation.  I  did  not 
think  of  its  bearing  one  way  or  the  other,  either  on  my  own 
future  or  on  anything  else.  As  things  have  turned  out,  I 
am  very  glad  that  I  asked  him,  for  the  clamor  aroused  by 
the  act  makes  me  feel  as  if  the  act  was  necessary. 

"I  have  not  been  able  to  think  out  any  solution  of  the 
terrible  problem  offered  by  the  presence  of  the  negro  on 
this  continent,  but  of  one  thing  I  am  sure,  and  that  is  that 
inasmuch  as  he  is  here  and  can  neither  be  killed  nor  driven 
away,  the  only  wise  and  honorable  and  Christian  thing  to 
do  is  to  treat  each  black  man  and  each  white  man  strictly  on 
his  merits  as  a  man,  giving  him  no  more  and  no  less  than 
he  shows  himself  worthy  to  have.  I  say  I  am  'sure'  that 
this  is  the  right  solution.  Of  course  I  know  that  we  see 
through  a  glass  dimly,  and,  after  all,  it  may  be  that  I  am 
wrong;  but  if  I  am,  then  all  my  thoughts  and  beliefs  are 
wrong,  and  my  whole  way  of  looking  at  life  is  wrong.  At 
any  rate,  while  I  am  in  public  life,  however  short  a  time 
that  may  be,  I  am  in  honor  bound  to  act  up  to  my  beliefs 
and  convictions.  I  do  not  intend  to  offend  the  prejudices 
of  any  one  else,  but  neither  do  I  intend  to  allow  their  preju- 
dices to  make  me  false  to  my  principles,' ' 


THE  BOOKER  WASHINGTON  INCIDENT  167 

I  have  said  that  there  was  a  division  of  opinion  in  the 
North  on  the  subject  of  the  famous  dinner.  A  striking 
illustration  of  this  is  afforded  in  the  comment  which  the 
New  York  World,  the  foremost  Democratic  newspaper  of 
the  North,  made  editorially  on  October  20,  1901 : 

"An  American  named  Washington,  one  of  the  most 
learned,  most  eloquent,  most  brilliant  men  of  the  day — the 
President  of  a  college — is  asked  to  dinner  by  President 
Eoosevelt.  And  because  the  pigment  of  his  skin  is  some 
shades  darker  than  that  of  others  a  large  part  of  the  United 
States  is  convulsed  with  shame  and  rage. 

"The  man  is  a  negro.  Therefore  in  eating  with  him  the 
President  is  charged  with  having  insulted  the  South.  This 
man  may  cast  a  ballot  but  he  may  not  break  bread.  He  may 
represent  us  in  the  Senate  Chamber,  but  he  may  not  'join 
us  at  the  breakfast  table.'  He  may  educate  us,  but  not 
eat  with  us;  preach  our  Gospel,  but  not  be  our  guest;  en- 
lighten our  minds,  but  not  entertain  our  bodies ;  die  for  us, 
but  not  dine  with  us. 

"Truly  Liberty  must  smile  at  such  broad-minded  logic, 
such  enlightened  tolerance.    Or  should  she  weepT^ 

An  interesting  corollary  to  this  disturbing  incident  is 
afforded  in  a  letter  that  Roosevelt  wrote,  two  years  later, 
on  October  29,  1903,  to  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott: 

"Yesterday  the  Episcopal  Bishops  and  clergymen  called 
to  see  me.  The  Bishops  of  Kentucky,  Mississippi,  Ala- 
bama, Georgia,  North  Carolina,  Virginia,  etc.,  etc.,  were 
all  there.  Among  them  was  an  archdeacon  from  North  Car- 
olina and  a  clergyman  from  Maryland,  both  of  them  ne- 
groes. They  came  into  the  White  House  in  line  among  the 
rest  of  the  bishops,  deacons,  and  doctors  of  divinity.  No- 
body shrank  from  them ;  nobody  seemed  to  think  it  unnat- 
ural that  I  should  receive  them  in  the  White  House.  These 
high  prelates  of  the  Episcopal  church  brought  their  wives 
and  daughters  along  in  their  company.  They  did  not  sit 
down  at  the  table,  but  they  all  were  received  by  Mrs.  Roose- 
velt and  myself  on  the  same  terms.    If  any  of  them  took 


168  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

any  refreshment  the  colored  men  doubtless  did  so  too.  I 
wonder  whether  these  same  Southern  bishops  and  clergy- 
men were  shocked  when,  two  years  ago,  Booker  Washington 
sat  down  at  my  table  with  me  ?  In  South  Carolina,  at  Flor- 
ence, I  have  just  reappointed  a  negro  postmaster  with  the 
approval  of  the  entire  community.  Why  South  Carolina 
should  go  crazy  over  the  appointment  of  an  equally  good 
negro  as  collector  of  the  port  of  Charleston  I  do  not  know. 
Why  the  Southerners  should  be  glad  to  visit  the  White 
House  in  company  with  a  colored  archdeacon,  and  yet  feel 
furious  because  I  received  in  only  slightly  more  intimate 
fashion  a  great  colored  educator  I  am  again  at  a  loss  to 
understand. ' ' 

Subsequently  the  President  wrote  two  notable  letters, 
from  which  I  shall  quote,  denning  fully  his  views  in  regard 
to  the  treatment  of  the  colored  race  and  the  appointment 
of  colored  men  to  public  office.  The  first  was  to  Mr.  R.  GL 
Ehett,  of  Charleston,  S.  C,  under  date  of  November  10, 
1902: 

"How  any  one  could  have  gained  the  idea  that  I  had  said 
I  would  not  appoint  reputable  and  upright  colored  men  to 
office,  when  objection  was  made  to  them  solely  on  account 
of  their  color,  I  confess  I  am  wholly  unable  to  understand. 

1  i  So  far  as  I  legitimately  can  I  shall  always  endeavor  to 
pay  regard  to  the  likes  and  dislikes  of  the  people  of  each 
locality,  but  I  cannot  consent  by  my  action  to  take  the  po- 
sition that  the  door  of  hope — the  door  of  opportunity — is 
to  be  shut  upon  all  men,  no  matter  how  worthy,  purely 
upon  the  grounds  of  color.  Such  an  attitude  would  accord- 
ing to  my  conviction  be  fundamentally  wrong.  The  ques- 
tion of  '  negro  domination '  does  not  enter  into  the  matter  at 
all.  You  yourself  know  that  the  enormous  majority  of  my 
appointments  in  South  Carolina  have  been  of  white  men, 
and  so  far  as  I  know,  of  white  men  whose  good  character 
and  uprightness  were  not  questioned.  The  question  simply 
is  whether  it  is  to  be  declared  that  under  no  circumstances 
shall  any  man  of  color,  no  matter  how  good  a  citizen,  no 


THE  BOOKER  WASHINGTON  INCIDENT  169 

matter  how  upright  and  honest,  no  matter  how  fair  in  his 
dealings  with  all  his  fellows,  be  permitted  to  hold  any  office 
under  our  government.  I  certainly  cannot  assume  such  an 
attitude,  and  you  must  permit  me  to  say  that  in  my  view  it 
is  an  attitude  no  one  should  assume,  whether  he  looks  at  it 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  true  interest  of  the  white  men  of 
the  South  or  of  the  colored  men  of  the  South — not  to  speak 
of  any  other  section  in  the  Union.  It  seems  to  me  that  it 
is  a  good  thing  from  every  standpoint  to  let  the  colored 
man  know  that  if  he  shows  in  marked  degree  the  qualities 
of  good  citizenship — the  qualities  which  in  a  white  man  we 
feel  are  entitled  to  reward — then  he  himself  will  not  be  cut 
off  from  all  hope  of  similar  reward.' ' 

The  second  letter  was  written  under  date  of  February 
23,  1903,  to  Mr.  Clark  Howell,  editor  of  the  Atlanta  Consti- 
tution: 

"Now  as  to  what  you  say  concerning  Federal  appoint- 
ments in  the  South.  Frankly,  it  seems  to  me  that  my  ap- 
pointments speak  for  themselves  and  that  my  policy  is  self- 
explanatory.  So  far  from  feeling  that  they  need  the  slight- 
est apology  or  justification,  my  position  is  that  on  the 
strength  of  what  I  have  done  I  have  the  right  to  claim  the 
support  of  all  good  citizens  who  wish  not  only  a  high 
standard  of  Federal  service  but  fair  and  equitable  dealing 
to  the  South  as  well  as  to  the  North,  and  a  policy  of  con- 
sistent justice  and  good  will  toward  all  men.  In  making 
appointments  I  have  sought  to  consider  the  feelings  of  the 
people  of  each  locality  so  far  as  I  could  consistently  do  so 
without  sacrificing  principle.  The  prime  tests  I  have  ap- 
plied have  been  those  of  character,  fitness  and  ability,  and 
when  I  have  been  dissatisfied  with  what  has  been  offered 
within  my  own  party  lines  I  have  without  hesitation  gone 
to  the  opposite  party — and  you  are  of  course  aware  that  I 
have  repeatedly  done  this  in  your  own  State  of  Georgia. 
I  certainly  cannot  treat  mere  color  as  a  permanent  bar  to 
holding  office,  any  more  than  I  could  so  treat  creed  or  birth- 
place— always  provided  that  in  other  respects  the  applicant 


170  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

or  incumbent  is  a  worthy  and  well-behaved  American  citi- 
zen. Just  as  little  will  I  treat  it  as  conferring  a  right  to 
hold  office.  I  have  scant  sympathy  with  the  mere  doctri- 
naire, with  the  man  of  mere  theory  who  refuses  to  face 
facts ;  but  do  you  not  think  that  in  the  long  run  it  is  safer 
for  everybody  if  we  act  on  the  motto,  '  All  men  up, '  rather 
than  that  of  'Some  men  down'?" 


CHAPTER  XVI 
CONTROVERSIES  WITH  GENERAL  MILES 

An  incident  which  excited  much  attention  and  varying 
comment  occurred  in  December,  1901,  during  the  prolonged, 
controversy  between  Admirals  Sampson  and  Schley  con- 
cerning the  conduct  of  the  latter  in  the  naval  battle  of  San- 
tiago during  the  war  with  Spain.  The  Naval  Court  of  In- 
quiry, which  investigated  the  case,  made  a  report  on  De- 
cember 16,  which  was  adverse  to  Schley.  In  a  published 
interview  on  December  17,  General  Nelson  A.  Miles,  who 
was  then  the  Lieutenant-General  of  the  army,  its  highest 
officer,  condemned  the  finding  of  the  Court  and  upheld 
Schley  's  side  in  the  controversy.  He  was  rebuked  officially 
by  the  Secretary  of  War,  Elihu  Root,  for  this  expression 
on  the  ground  that  it  was  in  violation  of  the  army  regula- 
tions which  forbid  expression  by  military  men  of  opinions 
of  any  kind,  either  of  praise  or  censure,  in  matters  of  the 
kind.  The  President  approved  the  order  of  rebuke.  Gen- 
eral Miles  went  to  the  White  House  to  protest  to  the  Presi- 
dent, and  was  shown  into  the  reception  room,  where  he 
found  the  President  in  conversation  with  a  number  of  per- 
sons. Striding  up  to  the  President,  and  interrupting  the 
conversation,  the  General  said:  "Mr.  President,  I  have 
come  here  to  protest  against  that  order  of  Secretary  Root. ' ' 
Before  he  could  get  any  further,  the  President,  noticing 
his  excited  condition,  said  quietly:  "Step  into  the  Cabinet 
room,  General,  and  I  will  see  you  there  presently. "  Instead 
of  heeding  this  request,  the  General  said  again,  loudly  for 
all  to  hear:  "Mr.  President,  I  am  here  to  protest,  etc." 
Again  the  President  said,  this  time  impressively:  "Gen- 
eral, I  advise  you  to  step  into  the  Cabinet  room!"  Again 
the  General  declined  to  do  so,  repeating  his  previous  utter- 
in 


172  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

ances,  whereupon  the  President,  stepping  closely  to  him  and 
speaking  with  emphasis  and  distinctness,  said,  in  substance : 
"General  Miles,  you  are  a  veteran  with  a  distinguished 
record.  I  wish  to  show  you  courtesy,  but  if  you  insist  upon 
my  telling  you  what  I  am  about  to,  I  shall  do  so.  Your  con- 
duct has  been  not  merely  silly  but  insubordinate  and  un- 
military.  You  have  done  what  you  could  to  damage  the 
navy  and  damage  the  army.  Secretary  Eoot  is  absolutely 
right,  and  you  deserve  a  severe  reprimand  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  discipline  absolutely  essential  to  the  army's 
welfare." 

No  account  of  this  interview  was  given  out  from  the 
White  House,  but  General  Miles  allowed  a  version  of  his 
own  to  reach  the  press  in  which  it  was  made  to  appear  that 
the  President  had  turned  upon  him  in  anger  when  he  en- 
tered the  room  and  had  subjected  him  to  humiliation  by  ad- 
ministering a  rebuke  to  him  publicly.  The  President  never 
took  the  trouble  to  contradict  this  inaccurate  report.  The 
version  herewith  given  is  authoritative  and  strictly  truthful. 
To  a  Western  editor  who  had  written  to  the  President  in  the 
interest  of  General  Miles,  Eoosevelt  replied,  December  10, 
1901: 

"I  take  it  for  granted  that  you  will  cordially  agree  with 
me  that  such  action  as  that  of  General  Miles  is  to  be  repri- 
manded severely,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  discipline  ab- 
solutely essential  if  the  Army  and  Navy  are  to  amount  to 
anything;  and  this  without  regard  to  which  side  he  takes. 

"As  for  the  Schley  matter,  most  emphatically  I  shall  en- 
deavor to  do  absolute  justice.  But  you  must  let  me  say  that 
in  doing  justice  I  should  be  ashamed  to  take  into  considera- 
tion whether  what  I  did  was  popular  or  not.  I  hope  I  shall 
not  have  to  take  any  part  at  all  in  a  matter  that  purely  re- 
fers to  President  McKinley's  administration,  and  with 
which  I  have  nothing  whatever  to  do ;  but  if  I  do  have  to 
take  it  up  I  shall  decide  the  case  absolutely  on  its  merits, 
and  I  shall  no  more  consider  whether  a  majority  of  the 
people  are  for  or  against  a  given  man  than  I  should  con- 


CONTROVERSIES  WITH  GENERAL  MILES  173 

sider  it  if  I  were  a  judge  sitting  upon  the  bench  deciding 
the  rights  or  wrongs  of  a  particular  case." 

The  verdict  of  the  Sampson-Schley  court  of  inquiry,  after 
having  been  approved  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  was, 
at  Schley 's  request,  referred  to  the  President  for  review 
on  January  7, 1902,  and  on  February  18  following  the  Pres- 
ident confirmed  it  on  the  ground  that  it  decreed  substantial 
justice. 

General  Miles  got  himself  into  further  trouble  with  the 
War  Department  a  few  weeks  later.  He  made  formal  ap- 
plication on  February  17,  1902,  to  the  Secretary  of  War  to 
be  sent  to  the  Philippines,  with  ten  men  of  his  own  selection 
from  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico,  to  take  full  control  there  from 
the  military  and  civil  authorities,  conduct  a  thorough  in- 
quiry, and  return  with  such  a  number  of  native  Filipinos 
as  seemed  desirable,  and  then  enter  into  consultation  with 
members  of  Congress  as  to  a  plan  for  the  future  control 
of  the  islands. 

Secretary  Root,  in  a  memorandum  dated  March  5,  1902, 
which  was  approved  by  the  President,  denied  the  applica- 
tion, saying  that  to  grant  it  would  practically  be  to  super- 
sede Governor  Taft  and  General  Chaffee,  who  were  in 
charge  of  the  Philippines,  and  would  be  a  reflection  on  their 
successful  conduct  of  affairs  in  the  islands.  To  this  Gen- 
eral Miles  replied  in  a  letter,  March  24,  1902,  reviewing  the 
action  of  the  President  and  Secretary,  endeavoring  to  show 
it  had  been  wrong,  and  assuming  as  evidence  of  his  conten- 
tion that  certain  charges  which  had  been  made  of  official 
misconduct  in  the  Philippines  were  true,  although  they  were 
at  the  time  under  investigation  and  unproved.  On  this 
letter  Secretary  Eoot  made  a  memorandum,  on  March  25, 
1902,  reviewing  the  General  's  conduct  in  the  matter  and 
saying: 

"In  the  interest  of  good  discipline  and  effective  service 
such  a  course  is  much  to  be  regretted.  Such  charges  ought 
not  to  be  published  against  our  countrymen,  whom  we  have 
sent  to  labor  and  fight  under  our  flag  on  the  other  side 


174  THEODOEE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

of  the  world,  before  they  can  be  heard  in  their  own  de- 
fense." 

On  this  memorandum  the  President  wrote,  March  27, 
1902: 

1  l  The  memorandum  of  the  Secretary  of  War  is  approved 
as  a  whole  and  as  to  every  part.  Had  there  been  any  doubt 
before  as  to  the  wisdom  of  denying  General  Miles  's  request, 
these  papers  would  remove  such  doubt. ' ' 

General  Miles  brought  it  about  that  this  correspondence 
was  made  known  to  members  of  Congress,  and  its  publica- 
tion was  called  for  and  procured.  He  also  was  believed  to 
have  been  instrumental  in  securing  the  publication  in  the 
press  of  a  letter  containing  the  charges  alluded  to  in  his 
second  letter  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  charges  which  were 
withdrawn  later  by  the  writer  of  the  letter  because  no  evi- 
dence could  be  adduced  to  sustain  them. 

While  this  episode  in  the  career  of  General  Miles  was  in 
progress,  the  President  wrote  a  confidential  letter  to  Sec- 
retary Boot  in  which  a  very  strong  light  is  thrown  on  the 
mental  peculiarities  of  the  General.  It  is  now  published  for 
the  first  time: 

Private  and  Confidential. 

March  7,  1902. 
My  dear  Mr.  Secretary: 

It  seems  to  me  that,  for  your  private  use  at  the  present 
time,  and  with  a  view  to  making  a  permanent  record  of 
certain  facts,  I  ought  to  send  this  memorandum  to  you  in 
connection  with  the  request  of  General  Miles  which  you 
have  so  properly  disapproved.  This  is  the  request  which 
General  Miles  first  showed  me  in  a  far  more  offensive  form ; 
the  request  at  that  time  being  couched  in  language  which 
amounted  to  an  endorsement  by  the  head  of  the  army  of 
some  of  the  most  offensive  and  most  unfounded  slanders 
which  have  been  put  forth  on  the  stump  and  in  Congress 
by  the  violent  traducers  of  the  army  and  of  the  nation. 
The  course  of  General  Miles  in  giving  his  endorsement  to 


CONTROVERSIES  WITH  GENERAL  MILES  175 

these  utterly  baseless  slanders  against  the  army  of  which 
he  is  himself  the  head  was  precisely  on  a  parallel  with  his 
recent  memorandum,  in  which  he  impliedly  endorsed  the 
statements  of  the  least  responsible  demagogues,  to  the -ef- 
fect that  the  army  was  gathered  near  great  cities  for  the 
purpose  of  overawing  workingmen. 

During  the  six  months  that  I  have  been  President,  Gen- 
eral Miles  has  made  it  abundantly  evident  by  his  actions 
that  he  has  not  the  slightest  desire  to  improve  or  benefit 
the  army,  and  to  my  mind  his  actions  can  bear  only  the 
construction  that  his  desire  is  purely  to  gratify  his  selfish 
ambition,  his  vanity,  or  his  spite.  His  conduct  is  certainly 
entirely  incompatible,  not  merely  with  intelligent  devotion 
to  the  interests  of  the  country,  but  even  with  intelligent  de- 
votion to  the  interests  of  the  service.  President  McKinley 
and  you  yourself  have  repeatedly  told  me  that  such  was 
the  case  during  the  period  before  I  became  President. 

To  show  the  animus  of  General  Miles  in  these  matters  and 
the  extreme  unwisdom  of  trusting  him  in  any  position 
where  he  can  imagine  it  to  be  for  his  interest  to  discredit 
the  American  Government  or  the  American  Army,  I  re- 
capitulate here  what  I  have  already  told  you  and  President 
McKinley  as  to  something  that  occurred  about  three  years 
ago.  At  that  time  I  had  testified  or  was  about  to  testify 
as  to  certain  shortcomings  in  the  War  Department  during 
the  Spanish  War.  General  Miles  seemingly  construed  this, 
not  as  a  desire  to  tell  the  truth,  whoever  was  affected,  but 
as  a  championship  of  himself  against  Secretary  Alger  and 
President  McKinley.  I  was  Governor  of  New  York,  and 
had  come  on  here  to  visit  Senator  Lodge.  At  the  time,  our 
army  was  engaged  in  the  hard  fighting  which  accompanied 
the  outbreak  of  the  Filipino  insurrection.  General  Miles 
made  repeated  efforts  to  see  me,  and  finally  succeeded  and 
had  a  long  conversation  with  me,  in  Lodge's  house,  on  the 
afternoon  of  Sunday,  February  26,  1899.  He  proposed  to 
me  that  we  should  join  forces  and  that  he  should  run  for 
President  while  I  ran  for  Vice-President.  His  estimate  of 
the  political  situation  was  utterly  fatuous,  and  the  propo- 


176  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

sition  was  interesting  only  because,  in  the  first  place,  it 
showed  the  man's  political  folly,  and,  in  the  second  place, 
it  gave  me  a  glimpse  of  a  most  unpleasant  side  of  his  char- 
acter as  Major-General  cpmmanding  the  army.  He  based 
his  main  hope  of  being  able  to  upset  President  McKinley 
and  deprive  him  of  a  renomination  or  reelection  upon 
what  he  regarded  as  the  probable  failure  of  our  arms  in 
the  Philippines.  He  repeated  again  and  again,  obviously 
with  the  utmost  satisfaction,  that  disaster  would  certainly 
befall  our  troops  and  that  possibly  they  might  be  driven 
out  of  the  islands,  and  that  this  would  discredit  the  admin- 
istration of  President  McKinley  and  further  the  ambition 
of  any  one  who  was  against  him. 

After  listening  to  him  for  some  time,  I  remarked  that  of 
course  every  one  was  bound  to  work  for  the  success  of  our 
arms  in  the  Philippines  and  to  hope  for  it.  This  called 
forth  the  most  perfunctory  acquiescence  on  his  part;  and 
after  a  minute 's  pause  he  harped  back  to  what  he  had  been 
saying  already  and  repeated  two  or  three  times,  that  dis- 
asters were  certain  to  come ;  that  there  would  be  disgrace 
to  the  nation  and  that  then  President  McKinley  would  suf- 
fer ;  and  that  the  disgrace  which  befell  our  army  would  vin- 
dicate himself  (Miles)  and  help  the  opponents  of  the  Ad- 
ministration. 

His  attitude  was  so  foolish,  and  from  a  political  stand- 
point he  was  so  vague  in  his  notions  as  to  what  should  be 
done  to  achieve  his  ambition,  and  so  ignorant  of  the  fact 
that  if  the  country  did  become  hostile  to  McKinley  the  ad- 
vantage was  bound  to  accrue  to  somebody  other  than  him- 
self, that  I  should  not  have  thought  of  the  matter  again  had 
it  not  been  for  the  very  unpleasant  impression  which  his 
conduct  necessarily  made  upon  me  in  view  of  his  being 
the  commanding  general  of  the  army.  I  told  Senator  Lodge 
of  the  matter  at  the  time.  The  following  July  you  came 
into  your  present  office;  and  I  was  impressed  more  and 
more,  as  I  thought  over  the  matter,  by  the  danger  which 
might  result  from  the  fact  that  the  general  commanding  the 
army,  who  was  advising  you  in  the  most  confidential  man- 


CONTROVERSIES  WITH  GENERAL  MILES         177 

ner  as  regards  the  course  you  were  to  follow  in  the  Philip- 
pines, was  really  counting  on  the  failure  of  that  course  as 
the  stepping-stone  to  his  own  political  ambition.  I  finally 
became  convinced  that,  inasmuch  as  General  Miles  was  in 
a  frame  of  mind  which  caused  him  to  take  delight  in  disas- 
ters to  the  American  arms  unless  success  would  redound 
to  his  own  personal  advantage,  it  would  be  well  to  caution 
President  McKinley  against  him.  I  accordingly  told  the 
facts  to  the  President.  Later  on  the  President  told  me  that 
Miles  had  tried  his  best  to  persuade  him  (President  McKin- 
ley) to  accept  Miles  as  a  candidate  for  Vice-President  on 
the  same  ticket  with  him. 

In  view  of  these  facts,  I  think  that  General  Miles  ought 
only  to  be  employed  when  we  are  certain  that  whatever  tal- 
ents he  may  possess  will  be  used  under  conditions  which 
make  his  own  interests  and  the  interests  of  the  country 
identical. 

Faithfully  yours, 

Theodore  Eoosevelt. 

The  closing  episode  in  the  public  career  of  General  Miles 
occurred  in  1903.  On  August  8  of  that  year  he  was  retired 
by  limit  of  age,  Secretary  Boot  issuing  the  regulation 
formal  order  to  that  effect.  A  great  clamor  was  at  once 
raised  in  and  out  of  the  press  because  no  letter  or  word  of 
commendation  of  the  General  accompanied  the  order.  The 
New  York  Times  was  especially  vehement,  saying  the  re- 
tirement of  this  ' '  splendid  soldier ' '  without  a  word  of  praise 
was  "an  amazing  blunder  which  may  even  assume  the  pro- 
portions of  a  veritable  calamity  to  the  administration. ' ' 
Two  letters  which  the  President  wrote  at  the  time  may  be 
cited  in  explanation  of  his  course.  The  first  was  to  Clarke 
Davis,  editor  of  the  Public  Ledger  of  Philadelphia,  under 
date  of  August  24,  1903 : 

"I  had  no  knowledge  that  any  one  would  suggest  my 
writing  a  letter  to  Miles  any  more  than  to  any  of  the  other 
Generals  I  had  retired.  The  matter  merely  did  not  occur 
to  me,  and  of  course  I  did  not  speak  about  it  to  Mr.  Root. 


178  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

But  if  I  had  spoken  about  it  to  Mr.  Eoot,  I  should  most  cer- 
tainly have  backed  him  in  refusing  to  give  any  special  rec- 
ommendation to  General  Miles.  It  does  not  seem  to  me 
that  the  matter  of  General  Miles 's  disloyalty  to  the  army 
is  one  the  knowledge  of  which  is  confined  to  the  Adminis- 
tration. Take  his  last  report  on  the  Philippines,  which 
was  made  public  with  the  findings  upon  it.  Therein  it  ap- 
pears conclusively  that  this  old  soldier  has  devoted  himself 
to  a  venomous  slander  of  the  army  under  his  supposed  con- 
trol. 

"As  I  told  you  in  my  last  letter,  General  Miles  asked  me 
to  go  in  with  him,  he  as  Presidential  candidate  and  I  as 
Vice-Presidential  candidate,  to  upset  McKinley  for  re- 
nomination.  Of  course  he  had  a  perfect  right  to  make  this 
proposition;  although  I  do  not  think  it  is  advisable  for  the 
General  commanding  the  army,  who  has  just  been  commis- 
sioned Lieutenant-General  by  the  President,  to  seek  a  nom- 
ination at  the  expense  of  that  President.  But  assuming 
that  his  conduct  was  proper  in  this  regard,  the  thing  that  I 
minded  was  the  sinister  pleasure  he  showed  at  the  thought 
that  McKinley  would  be  hurt  by  disasters  to  the  army  in  the 
Philippines,  and  his  eager  belief  that  these  disasters  were 
coming  and  would  hurt  McKinley  so  that  he  (Miles)  might 
step  into  McKinley 's  place.  In  other  words,  the  General 
commanding  the  army  was  hoping  for  political  preferment 
at  the  expense  of  the  President,  whose  adviser  he  was  sup- 
posed to  be,  through  disaster  to  the  army  of  which  this 
same  General  was  in  titular  command. 

"When  I  came  in  as  President  I  was  willing  to  forget 
all  this;  to  remember  only  Miles 's  gallant  conduct  forty 
years  before  in  the  Civil  War  and  the  fact  that  he  had 
also  done  well  in  the  Indian  warfare — although  not  as  well, 
for  instance,  as  Crook,  whose  intriguing  and  underhanded 
enemy  he  ever  showed  himself  to  be.  Accordingly  I  tried 
my  best  to  keep  on  good  terms  with  him.  But  it  was  ab- 
solutely impossible.  The  man  has  not  one  feeling  which 
should  characterize  an  officer  and  a  gentleman,  save  that 
only  of  physical  courage.    He  is  a  foolish  creature  possess- 


CONTROVERSIES  WITH  GENERAL  MILES  179 

ing  only  the  power  for  intrigue  and  for  demagogy,  but  not 
of  military  capacity. 

"But  what  counts  for  a  hundredfold  more  than  this,  I 
became  convinced  that  there  was  no  single  recommendation 
he  was  making  which  had  in  view  anything  but  his  own 
advancement.  He  was  anxious  not  to  benefit  the  army,  but 
to  harm  Secretary  Root,  and  to  gratify  his  spite  on  the  va- 
rious officers  of  whom  he  disapproved.  I  have  never  met 
any  officer  of  the  army  as  wholly  indifferent  to  its  welfare 
as  is  Miles;  and  this,  whether  the  matter  at  issue  be  the 
putting  down  of  Filipino  bandits,  or  the  use  and  abuse  of 
the  canteen,  or  establishing  a  cavalry  school,  or  anything 
else.  I  do  not  believe  he  is  capable  of  considering  anything 
but  his  own  personal  interest.  In  particular  the  course  he 
has  followed,  again  and  again,  seeking  to  discredit  our 
troops  in  the  Philippines  and  giving  currency  to  reports  of 
outrages  by  them  which  he  well  knew  to  be  unfounded,  has 
been  such  as  to  have  warranted  me  in  removing  him 
from  his  position  as  Lieutenant-General.  I  am  not  sure 
that  I  did  right  in  letting  him  serve  out  his  term,  but  most 
certainly  I  should  have  been  wrong  and  I  should  have  in- 
flicted harm  on  the  army  if  I  had  thanked  him  for  his 
treachery  and  misconduct. ' ' 

The  second  letter  was  to  Senator  Lodge,  who  was  then 
in  London,  serving  as  member  of  the  Alaskan  Boundary 
Commission.    This  was  under  date  of  September  3,  1903: 

"The  public  generally  and  the  soldiers  in  particular  have 
gone  frantic  because  we  did  not  single  Miles  out  for  special 
commendation  when  he  retired  from  the  service — a  thing 
we  have  done  in  the  case  of  none  of  the  other  generals 
with  Civil  War  records  who  have  retired.  We  are  a  queer, 
emotional,  hysterical  people  on  occasions,  and  in  the  Miles 
matter  as  in  the  Schley  matter  we  have  shown  at  our  worst. 
Miles  has  for  the  two  years  of  my  Presidency,  and  of  course 
for  some  years  before  that,  shown  himself  the  most  dan- 
gerous foe  and  slanderer  of  the  army  which  he  was  sup- 
posed to  command.     Nothing  will  hire  me  to  praise  him. 


180  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

There  has  been  really  a  great  gust  of  popular  anger  against 
me ;  I  am  not  writing  too  strongly  when  I  say  popular  anger. 
The  feeling  against  me,  especially  in  the  Grand  Army,  is 
so  bitter  that  certain  of  my  friends  in  Illinois  and  Indiana 
have  told  me  that  they  believe  that  if  the  election  were  held 
at  present  I  should  lose  both  those  States!  However,  I 
cannot  help  thinking  that  such  folly  will  burn  itself  out  be- 
fore a  year  is  over. ' ' 

A  final  demonstration  of  personal  idiosyncrasy  on  the 
part  of  General  Miles  occurred  a  few  weeks  later  and  is  re- 
corded in  the  following  correspondence.  On  October  8, 
1903,  the  President  wrote  to  Governor  Franklin  Murphy 
of  New  Jersey : 

"A  few  days  ago  General  Miles  went  to  one  of  the  lead- 
ing men  in  New  York  and  told  him,  as  illustrating  my 
attitude  toward  property,  that  you  had  recently  said  that  I 
had  informed  you  that  I  was  certain  I  was  going  to  win  the 
Northern  Securities  suit  and  thereby  ruin  Pierpont  Morgan 
and  Jim  Hill,  or,  to  use  his  exact  words,  'turn  Morgan  and 
Hill  into  the  street.'  My  informant  was  somewhat  upset 
over  the  matter  and  at  first  declined  to  allow  me  to  see 
you  about  it.  I  told  him  that  I  should  insist  upon  this,  be- 
cause I  was  absolutely  certain  that  the  story  was  merely 
a  lie  of  Miles  and  that  you  had  never  said  one  word  such 
as  you  were  represented  as  saying.  Indeed,  my  memory  is 
that  we  did  not  speak  of  the  Northern  Securities  suit  at  all, 
and  of  course  I  never  at  any  time  used  any  such  language  as 
that  imputed  to  me  about  Hill  or  Morgan,  or  expressed 
the  slightest  feeling  of  vindictiveness  or  personal  hostility 
toward  either. 

"I  am  half  ashamed  to  bring  such  an  absurd  falsehood 
to  your  notice.  I  wish  you  to  understand  that  if  I  alone 
were  cognizant  of  it,  I  should  not  bother  you  to  deny  it, 
for  I  should  never  think  a  second  time  of  it ;  but  it  is  aston- 
ishing what  some  sensible  men  are  capable  of  believing,  and 
so  I  should  like  you  to  write  me  just  a  line  on  the  matter." 


CONTROVERSIES  WITH  GENERAL  MILES  181 

To  this  Governor  Murphy  replied  immediately :  * '  Thank 
you  greatly  for  calling  my  attention  to  the  report  which 
has  reached  you.  You  are  entirely  correct  in  your  opinion 
of  it.    It  is  a  lie  in  its  statement  and  in  its  inference." 

In  response  to  this,  the  President  wrote,  on  October  10, 
1903 :  "I  thank  you  for  your  letter.  It  is  exactly  the  letter 
I  supposed  I  would  get  from  you.  Perhaps  the  report  orig- 
inated as  you  suggest — most  likely  General  Miles  simply 
made  it  up  from  the  beginning." 


CHAPTEE  XVII 
THE  NORTHERN  SECURITIES  SUIT 

When  Roosevelt  became  President  the  vital  question 
about  the  control  of  trusts  or  great  corporations  was 
whether  the  National  Government  had  the  power  to  exercise 
such  control.  A  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  1895, 
in  a  suit  brought  under  President  Cleveland's  administra- 
tion against  the  Sugar  Trust,  held  in  effect  that  under  the 
Constitution  the  National  Government  had  not  such  power. 
The  suit  had  been  brought  under  the  Sherman  anti-trust 
law  of  1890,  which  was  designed  to  destroy  monopoly  and 
curb  industrial  combinations  like  the  Sugar  and  Tobacco 
Trusts.  The  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  known  as  the 
Knight  decision,  was  in  effect  that  the  National  Govern- 
ment had  no  power  over  the  corporations,  and  it  was  so 
interpreted  by  them,  for  under  it,  virtually  all  the  trusts 
in  the  country  were  formed  later.  One  of  them,  known  as 
the  Northern  Securities  Company,  was  formed  shortly  be- 
fore Roosevelt  became  President,  and  *was  a  union  or 
merger  of  practically  the  entire  railway  system  of  the 
Northwest,  the  chief  lines  being  the  Northern  Pacific  and 
Great  Northern  Roads. 

Early  in  1902  the  President  took  up  with  the  Attorney 
General,  Philander  C.  Knox,  the  question  of  testing  the 
legality  of  this  merger  in  the  courts.  The  Attorney  Gen- 
eral advised  him  that,  in  his  judgment,  an  action  would  be 
sustained.  Without  consultation  with  other  members  of 
his  Cabinet,  the  President  directed  the  Attorney  General 
to  begin  the  suit.  No  intimation  of  his  purpose  had  reached 
the  public,  and  when,  on  the  late  afternoon  of  February  19, 
1902,  Mr.  Knox  gave  out  through  the  press  a  brief  an- 
nouncement that  the  President  had  so  directed  him,  a  tre- 

182 


THE  NORTHERN  SECURITIES  SUIT  183 

mendous  commotion  followed.  Mr.  Knox  simply  said  that 
some  time  previous  the  President  had  requested  an  opinion 
from  him  as  to  the  legality  of  the  merger  and  that  he  had 
recently  given  him  one  to  the  effect  that,  in  his  judgment, 
the  merger  violated  the  Sherman  Act  of  1890 ;  whereupon, 
the  President  had  directed  him  to  have  suitable  action  taken 
to  have  the  question  judicially  determined ;  a  bill  in  equity 
was  in  preparation,  and  it  was  probable  that  proceedings 
would  be  instituted  in  a  Federal  Court  in  Minnesota. 

This  announcement  was  published  in  the  morning  news- 
papers of  February  20,  1902,  its  publication  having  been 
withheld  till  after  the  close  of  the  stock  market  for  obvious 
reasons.  It  fell  upon  the  financial  world  literally  like  a  bolt 
from  the  blue.  The  members  of  the  President's  Cabinet, 
with  the  single  exception  of  the  Attorney  General,  got  their 
first  intimation  of  the  President's  purpose  from  the  news- 
papers. The  chief  personages  in  the  merger  were  J.  Pier- 
pont  Morgan  and  James  J.  Hill,  undisputed  kings  of  the 
financial  and  railway  worlds.  They  employed  as  legal  ad- 
visers the  ablest  lawyers  in  the  country,  recognized  leaders 
of  the  bar  throughout  the  land.  Not  one  of  these  advisers, 
it  was  shown  subsequently,  shared  the  view  taken  by  Mr. 
Knox.  Many  of  them  were  openly  vocal  in  their  indigna- 
tion and  contempt,  declaring  that  the  President  had  been 
led  into  an  act  of  folly  on  the  advice  of  "  an  unknown  coun- 
try lawyer  from  Pennsylvania.' '  Precisely  this  statement 
was  made  to  me  by  one  of  them,  and  when  I  reported  it  to 
the  President,  he  replied:  "They  will  know  this  country 
lawyer  before  this  suit  is  ended/ '  a  prophecy  which  was 
amply  fulfilled. 

The  effect  of  the  news  of  the  suit  in  Wall  Street  was  thus 
recorded  in  the  stock  market  report  of  the  Tribune  on 
February  21: 

"Not  since  the  assassination  of  President  McKinley  has 
the  stock  market  had  such  a  sudden  shock  as  was  caused 
by  the  announcement  on  Wednesday  night  of  President 
Roosevelt's  purpose  to  proceed  to  test  the  legality  of  the 


184  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

merger  of  the  Northern  Pacific  and  Great  Northern  Roads. 
Not  the  slightest  intimation  of  the  President's  proposed 
move  reached  Wall  Street  in  the  course  of  the  day  on 
Wednesday.' ' 

For  the  first  time  in  many  years  the  National  Adminis- 
tration had  acted  in  a  matter  of  great  financial  importance 
without  any  advance  news  of  its  purpose  reaching  Wall 
Street.  That  in  itself  was  a  disturbing  fact  for  it  showed 
that  all  existing  avenues  of  "inside  information"  had  been 
closed. 

The  Attorney  General  filed  a  bill  in  equity  in  the  United 
States  Circuit  Court  at  St.  Paul  on  March  10.  The  defense 
was  based  expressly  on  the  ground  that  the  Supreme  Court 
in  the  Knight  case  had  explicitly  sanctioned  the  formation 
of  such  a  company  as  the  Northern  Securities  Company. 
The  representatives  of  privilege  intimated,  and  sometimes 
asserted  outright,  that  in  directing  the  action  to  be  brought 
the  President  had  shown  a  lack  of  respect  for  the  Supreme 
Court,  which  had  already  decided  the  question  at  issue  by 
a  vote  of  eight  to  one. 

J.  Pierpont  Morgan  went  to  Washington  and  had  an  in- 
terview with  the  President,  Attorney  General  Knox  being 
present.  Mr.  Morgan  protested  against  the  President's 
conduct  in  acting  without  letting  him  know  of  his  purpose 
in  advance.  The  President  replied:  "That  is  just  what 
we  did  not  want  to  do."  "If  we  have  done  anything 
wrong,"  said  Mr.  Morgan,  "send  your  man  (meaning  the 
Attorney  General)  to  my  man  (naming  one  of  his  lawyers) 
and  they  can  fix  it  up."  "That  can't  be  done,"  said  the 
President.  "We  don't  want  to  ^x  it  up,"  added  Mr.  Knox, 
1 '  we  want  to  stop  it. ' '  Then  Mr.  Morgan  asked :  ' l  Are  you 
going  to  attack  my  other  interests,  the  Steel  Trust  and  the 
others?"  "Certainly  not,"  replied  the  President,  "unless 
we  find  out  that  in  any  case  they  have  done  something  that 
we  regard  as  wrong." 

When  Mr.  Morgan  retired,  the  President  said  to  Mr. 
Knox:    "That  is  a  most  illuminating  illustration  of  the 


THE  NORTHERN  SECURITIES  SUIT  185 

Wall  Street  point  of  view.  Mr.  Morgan  could  not  help 
regarding  me  as  a  big  rival  operator,  who  either  intended 
to  ruin  all  his  interests  or  else  could  be  induced  to  come  to 
an  agreement  to  ruin  none. ' ' 

I  was  informed  later  by  one  of  Mr.  Morgan's  counsel  that 
Mr.  Morgan  went  to  his  hotel  and  wrote  a  very  indignant 
and  violent  letter  to  the  President  which  was  never  deliv- 
ered because  it  was  stopped  on  the  way  by  my  informant, 
who  persuaded  the  irate  financial  magnate  of  its  unwisdom. 

The  case  was  first  tried  in  the  United  States  Circuit  Court 
at  St.  Paul  and  a  decision  in  favor  of  the  Government  was 
re'ndered  on  April  9, 1903.  It  was  appealed  to  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  and  was  argued  in  behalf  of  the 
Northern  Securities  Company  by  the  ablest  corporation 
lawyers  in  the  country.  It  was  admitted  that  the  conten- 
tion of  these  lawyers  that  the  merger  had  been  sanctioned 
by  the  Knight  decision  was  sound,  and  the  question  pre- 
sented to  the  Supreme  Court  was  simply  whether  it  would 
reverse  itself  by  reversing  that  decision.  This  it  decided 
to  do,  by  a  vote  of  5  to  4,  on  March  14,  1904,  when  it  ren- 
dered a  majority  decision  that  the  merger  had  been  formed 
in  violation  of  the  Sherman  Law.  The  power  of  the  Gov- 
ernment to  exercise  control  over  combinations  was  thereby 
permanently  established,  and  the  result  was  hailed  as  a 
notable  triumph  for  the  President  and  the  Attorney  Gen- 
eral.   The  New  York  Tribune  said  of  it  on  March  15,  1904 : 

"The  decision  completely  justifies  the  much  denounced 
action  of  President  Eoosevelt.  It  is  not  he  who  stops  the 
merger,  but  the  Supreme  Court.  The  highest  tribunal  in 
the  nation  decides  that  the  plan  to  control  these  competing 
railroads  is  illegal.  Those  who  formed  it  may  think  that 
a  hard  saying  and  a  wrong  one,  but  they  cannot  blame  the 
President  as  an  irresponsible  disorganizer  for  taking  the 
same  view  of  the  law  as  the  Supreme  Court,  nor  complain 
because  he  requires  them  to  obey  the  law,  and  when  he 
thinks  they  are  disobeying  it  submits  the  question  to  judi- 
cial decision." 


186  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

The  action  of  the  President  was  subjected  to  sharp  criti- 
cism until  the  final  verdict  was  rendered  but  he  was  able 
to  retain  his  equanimity  under  it,  as  his  private  corre- 
spondence shows.  On  May  6,  1902,  he  sent  this  letter  of 
introduction  to  the  Attorney  General: 

"This  is  my  good  friend,  Mr.  Smalley,  a  correspondent 
of  the  London  Times.  I  want  him  to  have  a  talk  with  you, 
because  in  New  York  he  lives  at  the  Metropolitan  Club  and 
meets  largely  the  gentlemen  who  since  the  merger  suit 
have  crossed  themselves  at  the  mention  of  our  names." 

On  June  3,  1902,  he  wrote  to  General  James  H.  Wilson : 
<  *  I  am  sorry  that  the  financial  men  should  be  tempted  to 
criticize  me  but  I  have  never  been  more  certain  of  anything 
than  that  I  was  right  in  taking  the  actions  which  they  crit- 
icize. It  is  above  all  to  the  interests  of  the  men  of  great 
wealth  that  the  people  at  large  should  understand  that  they 
also  have  to  obey  the  law." 

Following  closely  upon. the  decision  in  favor  of  the  Gov- 
ernment by  the  St.  Paul  Circuit  Court,  the  Attorney  Gen- 
eral, on  May  10,  1902,  began  proceedings  against  the  Beef 
Trust,  filing  a  petition  to  restrain  it  in  the  United  States 
Circuit  Court  of  the  Northern  District  of  Illinois.  A  deci- 
sion in  favor  of  the  Government  was  rendered  by  this  court 
on  May  26,  1903,  and  affirmed  by  the  Supreme  Courts  the 
United  States  on  January  31,  1905.  Other  similar  suits 
of  minor  importance  were  instituted  at  this  time  and  won 
by  the  Government.  During  the  years  following  1903, 
there  were  others  of  large  importance  instituted  and  won 
by  the  Government. 

When,  in  April,  1903,  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  rendered  its  decision  upholding  the  New  York  Fran- 
chise Tax  Law,  the  news  of  the  court's  action  reached  Pres- 
ident Eoosevelt  while  he  was  on  a  speaking  tour  in  the 
West.  He  expressed  his  natural  gratification  in  a  letter 
to  Secretary  Knox,  which  is  notable  also  for  its  reference 


THE  NORTHERN  SECURITIES  SUIT  .  187 

to  educational  influences  which  may  affect  the  minds  of 

judges  as  well  as  laymen : 

Ottumwa,  Iowa, 
April  28,  1903. 

"I  have  just  received  a  telegram  to  the  effect  that  the 
Franchise  Tax  Law  in  New  York  has  been  declared  consti- 
tutional by  the  Supreme  Court.  This  was  something  very 
near  my  heart  for  I  felt  that  the  Franchise  Tax  Law  was  the 
most  definite  and  important  contribution  to  decent  and  in- 
telligent government  made  by  me  while  I  was  Governor. 
I  am,  therefore,  very  much  pleased  with  the  news.  I  write 
you  because  I  think  that  the  reflex  action  of  what  you  have 
done  during  the  past  year  and  a  quarter  is  in  no  small  de- 
gree responsible  for  the  decision.  The  courts  can  be  edu- 
cated just  as  the  public  can  be  educated,  and  the  suits  you 
have  carried  on  and  the  decisions  you  have  secured  in  the 
United  States  Courts  have  had,  I  am  convinced,  a  very  pro- 
found effect  elsewhere.  Unless  I  am  greatly  mistaken  one 
of  the  places  where  this  effect  is  visible  is  this  Franchise 
Tax  decision." 


CHAPTEE  XVIII 
INCIDENTS  OP  A  BUSY  YEAR 

The  year  1902  was  one  of  incessant  activity  for  Eoosevelt 
and  was  fairly  crowded  with  events  of  far-reaching  impor- 
tance. Next  in  importance  to  the  beginning  of  proceedings 
against  the  trusts  was  the  settlement  of  the  great  anthracite 
coal  strike,  which  will  be  considered  comprehensively  in  the 
next  chapter.  In  the  midst  of  these  larger  activities  the 
President  was  able  to  find  time  for  the  consideration  of 
many  matters  of  scarcely  less  vital  moment.  He  had  recom- 
mended earnestly  in  his  first  annual  message  to  Congress 
that  reciprocal  trade  relations  be  established  with  Cuba.  A 
bill  granting  reciprocity  passed  the  House  but  was  held  up 
in  the  Senate  through  the  influence  of  the  powerful  beet- 
sugar  interests.  While  it  was  pending,  ex-President  Cleve- 
land wrote  a  letter,  on  January  21,  1902,  which  was  pub- 
lished, in  which  he  came  to  the  support  of  the  President 
very  heartily,  saying: 

"It  seems  to  me  that  this  subject  involves  considerations 
of  morality  and  conscience  higher  and  more  commanding 
than  all  others. 

"The  obligations  arising  from  these  considerations 
cannot  be  better  or  more  forcibly  defined  than  was  done 
by  President  Eoosevelt  in  his  message  to  Congress,  nor  bet- 
ter emphasized  than  has  been  done  by  Secretary  Eoot,  and 
yet  Congress  waits,  while  we  occasionally  hear  of  conces- 
sions which  rich  sugar  interests  might  approve  in  behalf  of 
trembling  Cuba." 

The  President  sent  a  special  message  to  the  Senate  in 
June,  urging  the  passage  of  the  bill  on  the  ground  of  simple 
justice  to  Cuba,  but  the  Senate  refused  to  heed  the  request. 

188 


INCIDENTS  OF  A  BUSY  YEAR  189 

A  year  later,  however,  a  treaty  of  reciprocity  with  Cuba, 
together  with  a  treaty  with  Colombia  in  regard  to  an  Isth- 
mian Canal,  was  negotiated  and  both  were  ratified  by  the 
Senate  in  February,  1903,  after  the  President  had  sent  an 
ultimatum  to  that  body  saying  that  if  the  treaties  were  not 
ratified  by  March  4  he  should  call  an  extra  session  for  their 
consideration. 

On  March  11,  1902,  the  President  sent  his  first  veto  mes- 
sage to  the  Senate,  refusing  to  sign  a  bill  removing  the 
charge  of  desertion  from  the  naval  record  of  a  man  who  had 
deserted  during  the  Civil  War.  Being  his  first  deliverance 
of  the  kind  the  President's  words  attracted  wide  attention 
and  elicited  general  approval : 

"  There  can  be  no  graver  crime  than  the  crime  of  deser- 
tion from  the  army  and  navy,  especially  during  war;  it  is 
then  high  treason  to  the  Nation,  and  justly  punishable  by 
death.  No  man  should  be  relieved  from  such  a  crime,  espe- 
cially when  nearly  forty  years  have  passed  since  it  oc- 
curred, save  on  the  clearest  possible  proof  of  his  real  inno- 
cence. In  this  case  the  statement  made  by  the  affiant  be- 
fore the  committee  does  not  in  all  points  agree  with  his 
statement  made  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  In  any  event 
it  is  incomprehensible  to  me  that  he  should  not  have  made 
effective  effort  to  get  back  into  the  Navy.  He  had  served 
but  little  more  than  a  month  when  he  deserted,  and  the  war 
lasted  for  over  a  year  afterward.  Yet  he  made  no  effort 
whatever  to  get  back  into  the  war.  Under  such  circum- 
stances it  seems  to  me  that  to  remove  the  charge  of  deser- 
tion from  the  Navy  and  give  him  an  honorable  discharge 
would  be  to  falsify  the  records  and  do  an  injustice  to  his 
gallant  and  worthy  comrades  who  fought  the  war  to  a  finish. 
The  names  of  the  veterans  who  fought  in  the  Civil  War 
make  the  honor  list  of  the  Republic,  and  I  am  not  willing  to 
put  upon  it  the  name  of  a  man  unworthy  of  the  high  posi- 
tion^ » 

The  President  did  not  permit  the  pressure  of  matters  of 
really  momentous  importance  to  turn  his  attention  from  his 


190  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

inflexible  purpose  to  have  appointments  in  the  public  ser- 
vice based  on  merit  and  fitness  alone.  One  of  his  earliest 
acts  after  taking  office  was  to  write  to  Cardinal  Gibbons, 
and  to  heads  of  the  Protestant  Church,  asking  their  aid  in 
securing  for  the  army  and  navy  as  chaplains  men  of  char- 
acter and  special  fitness  for  the  position.  On  June  10, 1902, 
he  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Secretaries  of  War  and  the  Navy, 
of  like  import,  saying : 

"I  want  to  see  that  hereafter  no  chaplain  is  appointed 
in  the  Army  (and  Navy)  who  is  not  a  first-class  man — a 
man  who  by  education  and  training  will  be  fitted  to  asso- 
ciate with  his  fellow-officers,  and  yet  who  has  in  him  the 
zeal  and  the  practical  sense  which  will  enable  him  to  do 
genuine  work  for  the  enlisted  men.  Above  all,  I  want  chap- 
lains who  will  go  in  to  do  this  work  just  as  the  best  officers 
of  the  line  or  staff  or  the  medical  profession  go  in  to  do 
their  work.  I  want  to  see  that  if  possible  we  never  appoint 
a  man  who  desires  the  position  as  a  soft  job.  How  would 
it  do  to  have  the  applicants  of  the  different  creeds  pass 
some  kind  of  examination  before  really  high-grade  clergy- 
men of  their  own  creeds?  That  is,  to  see  that  any  Episco- 
pal chaplain  has  the  backing  of  some  such  man  as  Bishop 
Potter,  Bishop  Satterlee,  or  Bishop  Doane;  that  a  Meth- 
odist was  backed  in  the  same  way;  and  so  on  through  the 
different  creeds.' ' 

Concerning  a  letter  which  the  Postmaster  General  had 
referred  to  him  for  comment,  he  sent  on  March  20, 1902,  this 
suggestion : 

"How  would  it  do  to  answer  this  letter  by  pointing  out 
the  extreme  difficulty  of  adopting  a  rule  in  reference  to  the 
Illinois  Senators  which  we  adopt  in  reference  to  no  other 
Senators  whatever?  We  do  not  remove  any  postmasters 
unless  on  charges,  but  when  it  comes  to  a  new  appointment 
we  confine  ourselves  to  asking  whether  the  man  recom- 
mended is  a  thoroughly  fit  and  proper  man,  giving  prefer- 
ence to  the  man  who  is  in  where  we  legitimately  can." 


INCIDENTS  OP  A  BUSY  YEAR  191 

Conditions  in  the  Philippine  Islands,  where  the  United 
States  Government  was  engaged  in  suppressing  a  native 
insurrection,  were  attracting  much  attention  in  the  spring 
of  1902,  and  reports  of  barbarous  cruelties  by  American 
soldiers  upon  native  prisoners  were  published  in  the  press. 
An  order  was  also  published  in  April,  1902,  which  General 
J.  H.  Smith,  nicknamed  ' '  Hell-Eoaring  Jake, '  '  had  issued  to 
his  troops  directing  them  to  "kill  and  burn  and  make  a 
howling  wilderness  of  San^ar."  This  naturally  aroused 
much  indignation  throughout  the  country,  and  the  anti- 
Imperialist  faction  that  had  vehemently  opposed  the  tak- 
ing over  of  the  Philippines  instead  of  making  them  an  in- 
dependent nation,  raised  a  great  clamor  about  it,  demand- 
ing that  the  United  States  troops  be  withdrawn  at  once  and 
the  Filipinos  be  left  to  rule  themselves.  The  President 
acted  at  once,  sending  this  order  to  the  Secretary  of  War : 

"Please  instruct  Governor  Taft  when  he  returns  to  the 
Islands  to  appoint  a  Commission,  say,  of  three  men  of  the 
highest  integrity  and  capacity  to  report  on  the  conduct  of 
the  military  government  at  the  present  time  toward  the 
natives  and  as  to  whether  or  not  any  brutalities  or  indig- 
nities are  inflicted  by  the  army  upon  the  natives." 

On  May  9,  1902,  he  wrote  to  Bishop  Lawrence  of  Massa- 
chusetts : 

"I  hope  it  is  unnecessary  to  say  that  no  one  in  the  coun- 
try can  be  more  anxious  than  I  am — save  perhaps  Secretary 
Root — to  discover  and  punish  every  instance  of  barbarity 
by  our  troops  in  the  Philippines.  No  provocation,  however 
great,  can  be  accepted  as  an  excuse  for  misuse  of  the  nec- 
essary severity  of  war,  and  above  all  not  for  torture  of  any 
kind  or  shape.  Long  before  any  statements  had  been  made 
public,  and  before  any  action  had  been  taken  by  Congress, 
the  War  Department  had  ordered  a  rigid  investigation  of 
certain  of  the  charges;  the  orders  of  investigation  having 
gone  out  over  three  months  ago.  The  investigation  will  be 
of  the  most  thorough  and  sweeping  character,  and  if  neces- 


192  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

sary,  will  be  made  by  the  civil  as  well  as  by  the  military 
representatives  of  the  Government  in  the  Islands." 

"When  the  clamor  over  the  charges  was  at  its  height  the 
President,  on  May  30,  1902,  delivered  the  Memorial  Day 
address  in  Arlington  Cemetery,  in  which  he  said: 

"  Determined  and  unswerving  effort  must  be  made,  and 
has  been  and  is  being  made,  to  find  out  every  instance  of 
barbarity  on  the  part  of  our  troops,  to  punish  those  guilty 
of  it,  and  to  take,  if  possible,  even  stronger  measures  than 
have  already  been  taken  to  minimize  or  prevent  the  occur- 
rence of  all  such  acts  in  the  future. 

' 1  Is  it  only  in  the  army  in  the  Philippines  that  Americans 
sometimes  commit  deeds  that  cause  all  other  Americans  to 
regret  1  No !  From  time  to  time  there  occur  in  our  country, 
to  the  deep  and  lasting  shame  of  our  people,  lynchings  car- 
ried on  under  circumstances  of  inhuman  cruelty  and  bar- 
barity— cruelty  infinitely  worse  than  any  that  has  ever  been 
committed  by  our  troops  in  the  Philippines;  worse  to  the 
victims,  and  far  more  brutalizing  to  those  guilty  of  it.  The 
men  who  fail  to  condemn  these  lynchings,  and  yet  clamor 
about  what  has  been  done  in  the  Philippines,  are  indeed 
guilty  of  neglecting  the  beam  in  their  own  eye  while  taunt- 
ing their  brother  about  the  mote  in  his.  Understand  me. 
These  lynchings  afford  us  no  excuse  for  failure  to  stop 
cruelty  in  the  Philippines.  But  keep  in  mind  that  these 
cruelties  in  the  Philippines  have  been  wholly  exceptional, 
and  have  been  shamelessly  exaggerated.  We  deeply  and 
bitterly  regret  that  they  should  have  been  committed,  no 
matter  how  rarely,  no  matter  under  what  provocation,  by 
American  troops.  But  they  afford  far  less  ground  for  a 
general  condemnation  of  our  army  than  these  lynchings 
afford  for  the  condemnation  of  the  communities  in  which 
they  occur.  In  each  case  it  is  well  to  condemn  the  deed, 
and  it  is  well  also  to  refrain  from  including  both  guilty  and 
innocent  in  the  same  sweeping  condemnation." 

This  denunciation  of  lynchings  in  the  South  was  greeted 
with  commendation  in  the  North  as  a  characteristically 


INCIDENTS  OF  A  BUSY  YEAR  193 

brave  utterance  of  ideas  which  many  entertained  but  few 
had  the  courage  to  express  in  public.  In  the  South  it  was 
denounced  bitterly  as  a  sectional  utterance,  unjust  and  ill- 
timed,  but  the  effect  of  it  throughout  the  country,  including 
the  South,  was  to  impress  forcibly  upon  the  minds  of  all 
thinking  persons  the  real  nature  of  the  Southern  lynchings 
and  hence  to  arouse  effective  sentiment  against  them. 

As  Secretary  of  War,  Mr.  Boot  was  responsible  for  the 
administration  of  affairs  in  the  Philippines,  and  his  staunch 
defense  of  the  military  and  civil  authorities  there  subjected 
him  to  a  large  share  of  the  hostile  criticism.  The  President 
replying  to  one  critic,  a  Boston  clergyman,  who  had  written 
to  him  on  the  subject,  wrote  as  follows,  on  June  17,  1902 : 

"Just  at  the  moment  Mr.  Root  has  been  savagely  at- 
tacked. Now  Mr.  Root,  by  himself  and  through  Governor 
Taft  and  General  Wood  and  other  military  and  civilian 
assistants,  has  done  work  which  I  regard  as  making  the 
United  States  always  his  debtor.  He  gave  up  the  position 
of  leader  of  the  New  York  bar,  with  a  practise  which 
brought  him  in  over  $100,000  a  year,  to  come  down  here.  If 
he  serves  through  my  term  he  will  have  made  a  pecuniary 
sacrifice  of  over  half  a  million  dollars  in  order  to  do  the 
work  he  has  undertaken.  He  has  worked  so  as  almost  to 
wear  himself  out.  I  am  obliged  continually  to  try  to  make 
him  ease  up  and  to  get  him  to  go  out  riding  with  me.  He 
has  not  one  thought  save  how  to  benefit  the  public  service, 
how  to  see  that  the  Army  is  kept  up  to  the  highest  standard, 
how  to  secure  the  faithful  fulfilment  of  our  obligations  to 
Cuba,  how  to  help  bring  peace  and  enlightenment  and  self- 
government  in  the  Philippines.  During  these  three  years 
he  has  performed  a  mass  of  work  such  as  has  been  per- 
formed by  no  other  minister  of  any  civilized  nation  during 
the  same  time,  nor  has  any  other  minister  in  any  govern- 
ment of  any  civilized  nation  had  a  task  so  important  which 
at  the  same  time  he  has  fulfilled  so  well.  Yet,  in  spite  of 
this,  he  has  been  most  cruelly  attacked,  usually  without  any 
basis  at  all,  sometimes  because  an  occasional  subordinate 
has  done  wrong — or  even,  as  with  every  other  pu,bUQ  man 


194  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

from  Washington  and  Lincoln  down,  because  an  occasional 
mistake  has  been  made  under  him  in  the  Department  itself. 
"  There  is  plenty  to  criticize  in  our  public  life,  but  I  have 
never  met  in  any  occupation  a  higher  standard  of  fidelity 
to  the  public  good  than  I  meet  in  many  of  the  men  with 
whom  I  have  been  brought  into  intimate  contact — judges, 
Senators,  Congressmen,  executive  officials." 

To  another,  a  head  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  a  Western 
State,  he  wrote  on  August  5,  1902 : 

"Most  assuredly,  my  dear  sir,  all  that  I  can  do  will  be 
done  to  see  that  the  Philippine  Islands  are  administered  in 
the  interest,  moral  and  spiritual  no  less  than  material  and 
intellectual,  of  their  inhabitants,  and  wherever  possible,  in 
accordance  with  the  wishes  of  the  Filipinos.  As  you  doubt- 
less know,  when  we  took  over  the  Islands  there  was  practi- 
cally no  indication  of  system  at  all,  so  far  as  the  bulk  of  the 
people  were  concerned.  There  was  no  foundation  on  which 
to  build.    We  had  to  start  absolutely  new." 

When  the  flood  of  criticism  was  at  its  height,  the  Presi- 
dent declared  in  an  address :  * i  The  Republic  has  put  up  its 
flag  in  those  Islands,  and  the  flag  will  stay  there.  Where 
wrong  has  been  done  by  any  one  the  wrongdoer  shall  be 
punished,  but  we  shall  not  halt  in  our  great  work  because 
some  man  has  happened  to  do  wrong." 

As  soon  as  the  news  of  General  Smith's  order  to  "kill 
and  burn"  reached  him,  the  President,  on  April  15,  1902, 
directed  that  a  court  of  inquiry  be  instituted  to  investigate 
it,  and  when  the  court  returned  a  verdict  of  guilty,  the 
President,  on  June  16,  1902,  ordered  the  General's  retire- 
ment, saying  that  "while  it  is  impossible  to  tell  exactly  how 
much  influence  the  order  had  in  inciting  the  commission  of 
deeds  which  we  all  regret,  his  worse  than  injudicious  pro- 
cedure has  destroyed  his  further  usefulness  in  the  active 
service  of  the  army." 

After  the  storm  of  criticism  had  subsided  he  received  a 


INCIDENTS  OP  A  BUSY  YEAR  195 

cordial  letter  of  confidence  and  approval  from  Prof.  Albert 
Bushnell  Hart,  of  Harvard  University,  to  which  he  replied 
on  October  30,  1902 : 

"The  President  is  not  in  a  position  to  know  how  he  is 
regarded,  and  moreover,  if  he  has  any  sense  at  all  he  is 
entirely  aware  of  the  way  in  which  public  favor  veers  and 
changes.  I  have  not  the  slightest  idea  how  I  am  really 
regarded  now  and  of  course  no  human  being  can  tell  how 
I  shall  be  regarded  in  a  year  or  two  hence.  But  this  is  not 
the  important  thing.  If  a  man  is  worth  his  salt  in  such  a 
position  as  mine  he  must  appreciate  the  well-nigh  terrible 
responsibilities  upon  him  so  deeply  as  to  lose  all  uneasiness 
about  his  own  personal  fortunes.  If  I  can  keep  the  sincere 
good  will  of  men  like  yourself  I  shall  feel  tolerably  confi- 
dent that  I  have  deserved  it.  In  that  case  I  shall  be  more 
than  rewarded,  no  matter  what  comes  in  the  future." 

In  June,  1902,  the  President  attended  the  Commence- 
ment exercises  of  Harvard  University,  his  Alma  Mater,  and 
was  given  the  honorary  degree  of  LL.D.  In  conferring  it 
President  Eliot  said:  "President  of  the  United  States, 
from  his  youth  a  member  of  this  society  of  scholars,  now 
in  his  prime  a  true  type  of  the  sturdy  gentleman  and  the 
high-minded  public  servant  of  a  democracy.' '  Speaking 
at  the  alumni  dinner  on  June  25, 1902,  President  Roosevelt, 
after  saying  that  it  was  "a  liberal  education  in  high- 
minded  statesmanship  to  sit  at  the  same  council  table  with 
John  Hay,"  devoted  himself  mainly  to  eulogizing  the  work 
of  three  men  who  were  performing  distinguished  public 
service  under  his  administration — Leonard  Wood,  Gov- 
ernor of  Cuba ;  Elihu  Root,  Secretary  of  War,  and  William 
H.  Taft,  Governor  of  the  Philippines. 

In  closing  his  address  he  said :  l '  Those  three  men  have 
rendered  inestimable  service  to  the  American  people.  I  can 
do  nothing  for  them.  I  can  show  my  appreciation  of  them 
in  no  way  save  the  wholly  insufficient  one  of  standing  up 
for  them,  and  for  their  work;  and  that  I  will  do  as  long 
as  I  have  tongue  to  speak!" 


196  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Secretary  Hay,  who  was  present  on  the  occasion,  wrote 
,  to  the  President  from  Boston,  on  the  following  day : 

Hotel  Touraine, 
June  26,  1902. 
Dear  Theodore: 

I  must  congratulate  you  with  all  my  heart  on  yesterday's 
triumph — it  was  nothing  less.  That  great  company  was  a 
corps  d' elite,  and  you  had  them  with  you  from  start  to 
finish.  President  Eliot,  when  you  sat  down,  said,  "What 
a  man!  Genius,  force,  and  courage,  and  such  evident 
honesty ! ' ' 

And  another  thought  was  in  everybody's  mind,  also. 
"He  is  so  young  and  he  will  be  with  us  for  many  a  day 
to  come.,,  We  are  all  glad  of  that,  even  the  old  fellows, 
who  are  passing. 

I  can  never  tell  you  how  much  I  thank  you  for  your  kind 
reference  to  me.  But  your  splendid  defense  of  Koot,  Wood, 
and  Taft  touched  me  still  more  deeply.  It  was  the  speech 
of  a  great  ruler,  and  a  great  gentleman — and  will  not  be 
forgotten. 

I  am  feeling  better  this  morning  and  expect  a  few  days 
in  Newbury,  N.  H.,  will  set  me  up — for  the  end  of  the 
session. 

Yours  affectionately, 

John  Hay. 

On  August  22  President  Eoosevelt  left  Oyster  Bay  for 
a  speaking  tour  through  New  England,  delivering  ad- 
dresses in  the  principal  cities  and  towns.  In  all  of  them 
he  explained  fully  his  views  in  regard  to  the  chief  ques- 
tions which  he  had  been  pressing  upon  Congress,  laying 
special  stress  upon  the  necessity  for  legislation  affecting 
trusts,  Cuba  and  the  Philippines  and  Porto  Eico,  and  se- 
curing the  building  of  the  Isthmian  Canal.  While  near 
Pittsfield,  Mass.,  on  September  3,  he  escaped,  literally  by  a 
hair's  breadth,  from  instant  death.  A  trolley  car,  going  at 
a  high  rate  of  speed,  collided  squarely  with  the  carriage  in 
which  he  was  riding,  an  open  landau  drawn  by  four  horses, 


INCIDENTS  OF  A  BUSY  YEAR  197  } 

smashing  the  vehicle,  killing  instantly  a  secret  service  man 
who  sat  on  the  box  with  the  driver,  and  throwing  out  with 
great  violence  the  occupants  of  the  carriage,  the  President,  * 
Governor  W.  Murray  Crane,  and  Mr.  Cortelyou,  private 
secretary  to  the  President.  The  President  was  thrown 
fully  forty  feet,  falling  on  his  right  cheek,  and  escaped 
death  almost  by  a  miracle.  Governor  Crane  and  Mr.  Cor- 
telyou were  bruised  but  not  seriously  injured.  The  Presi- 
dent was  on  his  feet  at  once,  crying  out :  "I  am  not  hurt,,, 
and  asking  eagerly  for  the  safety  of  his  companions.  He 
was  deeply  pained  by  the  death  of  the  secret  service  man, 
William  Craig,  who  had  been  a  most  faithful  attendant 
upon  him  in  all  his  journeyings.  He  returned  to  Oyster 
Bay,  arriving  there  in  the  evening,  with  the  whole  right  side 
of  his  face  swollen  and  colored  a  deep  purple,  and  one  leg 
badly  bruised.  In  spite  of  his  injuries,  he  started  on  the  fol- 
lowing day,  September  4,  for  a  tour  in  the  South  and  West, 
speaking  first  at  Wheeling,  West  Va.,  on  September  6.  He 
visited  during  the  ensuing  three  weeks,  Virginia,  Tennessee, 
Ohio,  Michigan  and  Indiana,  and  ended  his  tour  at  Indian- 
apolis on  September  24,  when  an  abscess  that  had  developed 
on  his  injured  leg,  and  which  threatened  to  affect  the  bone, 
compelled  him  to  return  to  Washington.  His  addresses 
during  this  tour  were  similar  to  those  delivered  in  New 
England  in  their  emphasis  upon  the  leading  questions  of 
his  administration. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

COAL  STRIKE   SETTLEMENT 

In  the  fall  of  1902  President  Roosevelt  performed  a  service 
to  the  nation  which  ranks  in  history  as  one  of  the  most 
patriotic  and  beneficent  of  his  career,  but  which,  when  he 
entered  upon  it,  was  denounced  with  more  bitterness  than 
almost  any  other  of  his  public  acts.  A  universal  strike  of 
the  miners  in  the  anthracite  coal  regions  of  Pennsylvania, 
involving  about  150,000  men,  was  instituted  in  the  spring  of 
that  year  and  continued,  with  steadily  increasing  animosity 
between  the  mine  operators  and  mine  workers,  through 
the  summer  and  into  the  autumn,  with  no  prospects  of 
settlement.  Its  progress  was  marked  with  many  acts  of 
violence  on  the  part  of  the  strikers  against  the  non-union 
laborers  whom  the  operators  were  trying  to  employ.  The 
Governor  of  Pennsylvania  had  been  appealed  to  and  had 
sent  militia  to  the  mines  for  the  protection  of  life  and 
property,  but  though  there  were  in  the  later  stages  of  the 
strike  about  2,000  of  these  troops,  they  had  shown  them- 
selves unable  to  put  a  stop  to  violence.  It  was  estimated 
that  during  the  rioting  twenty  persons  had  been  killed  and 
about  forty  injured,  and  that  much  property  had  been  de- 
stroyed. The  Governor  was  subjected  to  sharp  criticism 
for  the  inefficiency  of  the  force  and  was  accused  of  sym- 
pathy with  the  strikers.  Although  called  upon  repeatedly 
to  confess  the  inadequacy  of  the  State  militia  to  restore 
and  preserve  order,  and  to  appeal  to  the  National  Govern- 
ment to  come  to  the  aid  of  the  State,  he  refused  to  do  so. 
With  the  approach  of  winter,  a  general  feeling  of  alarm 
began  to  spread  over  the  land,  especially  in  the  East,  for 
in  all  States  east  of  the  Mississippi  River  anthracite  coal 
was  the  almost  exclusive  fuel,  and  the  supply  had  fallen  so 

198 


COAL  STRIKE  SETTLEMENT  199 

low  by  September  1  that  it  was  practically  impossible  to 
obtain  any  except  in  small  quantities.  Total  failure  of  the 
supply  seemed  imminent,  and  this  meant  appalling  distress 
in  the  entire  East,  with  peril  of  rioting  in  all  the  large 
cities.  All  persons  in  authority  were  seeking  anxiously  for 
some  powerful  means  by  which  to  bring  about  a  settlement. 
The  operators  of  the  mines,  who  had  united  in  an  associa- 
tion of  their  own,  were  deaf  to  all  appeals,  believing  that 
if  they  held  out  a  little  longer  the  sufferings  of  the  miners 
would  compel  them  to  yield — that  they  would  be  starved 
into  submission.  They  persisted  in  declaring,  in  spite  of 
indisputable  evidence  to  the  contrary,  that  there  was  no 
danger  of  a  coal  famine,  that  there  was  an  existing  supply 
ample  for  the  winter's  needs,  and  that  they  were  deter- 
mined to  permit  no  outside  interference  with  the  manage- 
ment of  their  own  business. 

President  Eoosevelt  had  been  watching  the  situation  with 
much  solicitude  for  several  weeks,  and  his  anxiety  had  been 
increased  by  appeals  which  came  to  him  when  the  advent 
of  cold  weather  drew  near,  to  take  some  action  to  avert  the 
calamities  which  were  threatening.  The  Governor  of 
Massachusetts,  the  Mayors  of  New  York  and  other  large 
cities  in  the  imperiled  region,  sent  word  to  him  that  if  the 
existing  coal  scarcity  continued  and  became,  as  seemed 
likely,  a  famine,  the  misery  throughout  the  East  would  be- 
come appalling  and  the  consequent  public  disorder  so  great 
that  frightful  consequences  might  ensue. 

Writing  to  Senator  Lodge,  on  September  27,  1902,  the 
President  gave  this  account  of  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
action  on  his  part  and  the  political  considerations  which 
were  hindering  a  settlement: 

"The  real  concrete  trouble  is  in  connection  with  the  coal 
strike.  There  is  literally  nothing,  so  far  as  I  have  yet  been 
able  to  find  out,  which  the  National  Government  has  any 
power  to  do  in  the  matter.  I  have  been  in  consultation  with 
Quay,  on  the  one  hand,  and  with  Sargent  on  the  other,  as 
to  what  I  can  do,  each  of  them  having  been  in  touch  with 
both  the  representatives  of  the  operators  and  with  Mitchell. 


200  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

One  of  the  great  troubles  in  dealing  with  the  operators  is 
that  their  avowed  determination  in  connection  with  the 
present  matter  is  to  do  away  with  what  they  regard  as  the 
damage  done  to  them  by.  submitting  to  interference  for 
political  reasons  in  1900.  From  the  outset  they  have  said 
that  they  are  never  going  to  submit  again  to  having  their 
laborers  given  a  triumph  over  them  for  political  purposes, 
as  Senator  Hanna  secured  the  triumph  in  1900.  They  are 
now  repeating  with  great  bitterness  that  they  do  not  intend 
to  allow  Quay  to  bully  them  into  making  any  concession 
for  his  political  ends,  any  more  than  they  would  to  allow 
Hanna  do  it  for  his. 

"Unfortunately  the  strength  of  my  public  position  be- 
fore the  country  is  also  its  weakness.  I  am  genuinely  inde- 
pendent of  the  big  moneyed  men  in  all  matters  where  I  think 
the  interests  of  the  public  are  concerned,  and  probably  I  am 
the  first  President  of  recent  times  of  whom  this  could  be 
truthfully  said.  I  think  it  right  and  desirable  that  this 
should  be  true  of  the  President.  But  where  I  do  not  grant 
any  favors  to  these  big  moneyed  men  which  I  do  not  think 
the  country  requires  that  they  should  have,  it  is  out  of  the 
question  for  me  to  expect  them  to  grant  favors  to  me  in 
return.  I  treat  them  precisely  as  I  treat  other  citizens; 
that  is,  I  consider  their  interests  so  far  as  my  duty  requires 
and  so  far  as  I  think  the  needs  of  the  country  warrant.  In 
return  they  will  support  me  in  so  far  as  they  are  actuated 
purely  by  public  spirit  simply  as  accordingly  they  think 
I  am  or  am  not  doing  well ;  and  so  far  as  they  are  actuated 
solely  by  their  private  interests  they  will  support  me  only 
on  points  where  they  think  it  is  to  their  interest  to  do  so. 
The  sum  of  this  is  that  I  can  make  no  private  or  special 
appeal  to  them,  and  I  am  at  my  wits '  end  how  to  proceed. • ' 

On  September  27,  1902,  he  wrote  also  to  Senator  Hanna 
on  the  same  subject: 

"What  gives  me  the  greatest  concern  at  the  moment  is 
the  coal  famine.  Of  course,  we  have  nothing  whatever  to 
do  with  this  coal  strike  and  no  earthly  responsibility  for  it. 


COAL  STRIKE  SETTLEMENT  201 

But  the  public  at  large  will  tend  to  visit  upon  our  heads 
responsibility  for  the  shortage  in  coal  precisely  as  Kansas 
and  Nebraska  visited  upon  our  heads  their  failure  to  raise 
good  crops  in  the  arid  belt,  eight,  ten,  or  a  dozen  years  ago. 
I  do  not  see  what  I  can  do,  and  I  know  the  coal  operators 
are  especially  distrustful  of  anything  which  they  regard 
as  in  the  nature  of  political  interference.  But  I  do  most 
earnestly  feel  that  from  every  consideration  of  public 
policy  and  of  good  morals  they  should  make  some  slight 
concession.' ' 

To  this  Senator  Hanna  replied  on  September  28,  1902 : 
' 1 1  am  in  receipt  of  yours  of  the  27th  inst.  and  reply  that 
I  share  with  you  the  anxiety  in  regard  to  the  coal  situation. 
After  leaving  Oyster  Bay  I  spent  the  balance  of  the  week  in 
New  York  raising  money  for  the  Congressional  Committee, 
and  trying  to  see  what  more  could  be  done  with  the  strike. 
Confidentially,  I  saw  Mr.  Mitchell  (the  public  knows  noth- 
ing about  that).  I  got  from  Mr.  Morgan  a  proposition  as 
to  what  he  would  do  in  the  matter.  And  I  got  Mitchell  to 
agree  to  accept  it  if  the  operators  would  abide  by  the  deci- 
sion. I  really  felt  encouraged — to  think  I  was  about  to 
accomplish  a  settlement.  I  went  to  Philadelphia  and  saw 
Mr.  Baer  (George  F.  Baer,  President  of  the  Reading  Rail- 
road) and  to  my  surprise  he  absolutely  refused  to  enter- 
tain it.  You  can  see  how  determined  they  are.  It  looks  as 
if  it  was  only  to  be  settled  when  the  miners  are  starved 
to  it.  And  that  may  be  weeks  ahead  as  they  are  getting 
liberal  supplies  from  their  fellow  workmen  all  over  the 
country. 

' '  I  am  not  unmindful  of  the  importance  of  this  coal  situa- 
tion and  will  not  miss  an  opportunity  to  help  it  if  I  can.  But 
the  position  of  the  operators  from  the  beginning  has  put 
all  efforts  of  mine  in  a  false  light  before  the  public  so  I  am 
only  able  to  hold  the  confidence  of  the  men,  and  serve  them 
if  lean.' ' 

From  this  point  to  its  successful  conclusion,  the  story  of 
the  President's  efforts  is  best  told  in  the  letters  that  he 


202  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

wrote  and  received  during  their  progress.     On  September 
30,  1902,  he  wrote  to  Senator  Lodge: 

"  After  consultation  with  Root,  Knox,  Murray  Crane  and 
others  on  the  one  side,  and  after  previous  consultation  with 
Senator  Quay,  Sargent  and  others  from  their  standpoint, 
I  have  been  inclined  to  think  that  there  was  a  chance  of  my 
doing  something  anyhow.  I  have  not  yet  worked  the  matter 
out  perfectly  clearly  in  my  mind,  but  yesterday  Root  went 
to  see  Morgan  and  explained  to  him  that  in  three  or  four 
days  I  should  take  some  action,  probably  by  inviting  the 
operators  to  come  to  see  me  and  requesting  in  good  faith 
an  effort  on  their  part  to  come  to  an  agreement,  by  arbitra- 
tion or  otherwise,  with  the  miners.  Thus  I  shall  have  a 
free  hand  to  do  what  I  deem  best.  I  may  be  unable  to  do 
anything  now,  but  I  may  tell  them  that  I  shall  advise  action 
along  the  lines  I  have  explained  in  my  speeches  but  of  a 
much  more  radical  type  in  reference  to  their  business  unless 
they  wake  up.  I  am  also,  however,  to  see  the  representa- 
tives of  the  coal  miners.  At  any  rate  I  am  thoroughly 
awake  and  will  do  what  I  can. ' ' 

On  October  1,  he  invited  the  operators  and  representa- 
tives of  the  mine  workers  to  come  to  Washington  on  October 
3,  for  consultation  with  him  for  the  purpose  of  endeavoring 
to  reach  a  settlement.  When  this  was  announced,  a  storm  of 
protest  came  from  the  newspapers  which  had  been  uphold- 
ing the  cause  of  the  operators  in  the  strike.  They  declared 
that  his  course  was  without  authority  under  the  Constitu- 
tion, that  its  immediate  effect  would  be  to  prolong  the  strike 
by  encouraging  the  strikers  to  persist,  and  that  for  a  Presi- 
dent to  interfere  in  the  affairs  of  private  corporations  was 
a  proceeding  so  unconstitutional  as  to  make  him  liable  to 
impeachment. 

The  invitation  was  accepted  by  both  parties  to  the  con- 
troversy, and  in  a  brief  address  to  them  on  assembling  the 
President  made  it  very  clear  that  he  did  not  for  a  moment 
assume  that  he  had  any  authority  whatever  for  his  action : 

"I  disclaim  any  right  or  duty  to  intervene  in  this  way 


COAL  STRIKE  SETTLEMENT  203 

upon  legal  grounds  or  upon  any  official  relation  that  I  bear 
to  the  situation;  but  the  urgency  and  the  terrible  nature 
of  the  catastrophe  impending  over  a  large  portion  of  our 
people  in  the  shape  of  a  winter  fuel  famine  impel  me,  after 
much  anxious  thought,  to  believe  that  my  duty  requires  me 
to  use  whatever  influence  I  personally  can  to  bring  to  an 
end  a  situation  which  has  become  literally  intolerable. 
With  all  the  earnestness  there  is  in  me  I  ask  that  there  be 
an  immediate  resumption  of  operations  in  the  coal  mines  in 
some  such  way  as  will,  without  a  day's  unnecessary  delay, 
meet  the  crying  needs  of  the  people.  I  do  not  invite  a  dis- 
cussion of  your  respective  claims  and  positions.  I  appeal 
to  your  patriotism,  to  the  spirit  that  sinks  personal  con- 
sideration and  makes  individual  sacrifices  for  the  general 
good.,, 

The  operators  showed  very  plainly  that  they  resented 
the  President's  action  and  had  come  in  a  thoroughly  bel- 
ligerent and  uncompromising  mood.  Immediately  after 
the  close  of  the  conference,  the  President  wrote  to  Senator 
Hanna,  October  3, 1902 : 

"Well,  I  have  tried  and  failed.  I  feel  downhearted  over 
the  result,  both  because  of  the  great  misery  made  for  the 
mass  of  our  people,  and  because  the  attitude  of  the  opera- 
tors will  beyond  a  doubt  double  the  burden  on  us  while 
standing  between  them  and  socialistic  action.  But  I  am 
glad  I  tried  anyhow.  I  should  have  hated  to  feel  that  I  had 
failed  to  make  any  effort.  What  my  next  move  will  be  I 
cannot  yet  say.  I  feel  most  strongly  that  the  attitude  of 
the  operators  is  one  which  accentuates  the  need  of  the 
Government  having  some  power  of  supervision  and  regula- 
tion over  such  corporations.  I  should  like  to  make  a  fairly 
radical  experiment  on  the  anthracite  coal  companies  to 
start  with!  At  the  meeting  to-day  the  operators  assumed 
a  fairly  hopeless  attitude.  None  of  them  appeared  to  such 
advantage  as  Mitchell,  whom  most  of  them  denounced  with 
such  violence  and  rancor  that  I  felt  he  did  very  well  to 
keep  his  temper.    Between  times  they  insulted  me  for  not 


204  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

preserving  order  (and  they  evidently  ignored  such  a  tri- 
fling detail  as  the  United  States  Constitution)  and  attacked 
Knox  for  not  having  brought  suit  against  the  Miners  Union 
as  violating  the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law.  - ' 

Reports  of  the  conference  were  published  in  the  news- 
papers of  October  4,  and  on  the  following  day  the  President 
received,  what  was  undoubtedly  one  of  the  most  welcome 
and  gratifying  letters  of  his  life,  the  following  from  Grover 
Cleveland : 

Princeton,  October  4,  1902. 
My  dear  Mr.  President: 

I  read  in  the  paper  this  morning  on  my  way  home  from 
Buzzard's  Bay,  the  newspaper  account  of  what  took  place 
yesterday  between  you  and  the  parties  directly  concerned 
in  the  coal  strike. 

I  am  so  surprised  and  "stirred  up"  by  the  position  taken 
by  the  contestants  that  I  cannot  refrain  from  making  a 
suggestion  which  perhaps  I  would  not  presume  to  make  if 
I  gave  the  subject  more  thought.  I  am  especially  disturbed 
and  vexed  by  the  tone  and  substance  of  the  operators'  de- 
liverances. 

It  cannot  be  that  either  side,  after  your  admonition  to 
them,  cares  to  stand  in  their  present  plight,  if  any  sort  of 
an  avenue,  even  for  temporary  escape,  is  suggested  to  them. 

Has  it  ever  been  proposed  to  them  that  the  indignation 
and  dangerous  condemnation  now  being  launched  against 
both  their  houses  might  be  allayed  by  the  production  of 
coal  in  an  amount,  or  for  a  length  of  time,  sufficient  to  serve 
the  necessities  of  consumers,  leaving  the  parties  to  the 
quarrel,  after  such  necessities  are  met,  to  take  up  the  fight 
again  where  they  left  off  "without  prejudice"  if  they 
desire? 

This  would  eliminate  the  troublesome  consumer  and  pub- 
lic; and  perhaps  both  operators  and  miners  would  see 
enough  advantage  in  that,  to  induce  them  to  listen  to  such 
a  proposition  as  I  have  suggested. 

I  know  there  would  be  nothing  philosophical  or  consis- 


COAL  STRIKE  SETTLEMENT  205 

tent  in  all  this ;  but  my  observation  leads  me  to  think  that 
when  quarreling  parties  are  both  in  the  wrong,  and  are 
assailed  with  blame  so  nearly  universal,  they  will  do  strange 
things  to  save  their  faces. 

If  you  pardon  my  presumption  in  thus  writing  you,  I 
promise  never  to  do  it  again.  At  any  rate  it  may  serve 
as  an  indication  of  the  anxiety  felt  by  millions  of  our  citi- 
zens on  the  subject. 

I  have  been  quite  impressed  by  a  pamphlet  I  have  lately 
read,  by  a  Mr.  Champlin  of  Boston,  entitled,  I  believe,  ' '  The 
Coal  Mines  and  the  People.' '    I  suppose  you  have  seen  it. 

Very  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant,  i 

Grover  Cleveland. 

To  the  President. 

This  letter  was  not  given  out  to  the  public,  of  course; 
neither  was  any  hint  given  of  its  existence.  If  it  had  been 
published,  the  effect  upon  the  furious  denouncers  of  the 
President's  course  would  have  been  ludicrous  in  the  ex- 
treme, for  they  were  declaring  that  he  was  doing  what  no 
other  President  had  ever  done,  or  had  ever  thought  of 
doing;  and  yet  here  was  the  only  living  Democratic  ex- 
President  upholding  him  in  what  they  called  his  unconsti- 
tutional and  revolutionary  course! 

To  Mr.  Cleveland's  letter,  the  President  replied  on  Octo- 
ber 5,  1902,  in  a  letter  which  gives  what  may  be  called  the 
historic  account  of  the  proceedings  at  the  conference.  It  is 
here  published  in  full  for  the  first  time. 

October  5,  1902. 
My  dear  Mr.  Cleveland: 

Your  letter  was  a  real  help  and  comfort  to  me.  Through- 
out this  matter  I  have  been  thinking  of  what  you  and  Mr. 
Olney  did  in  the  Pullman  car  strike,  and  have  been  going 
over  with  Carroll  D.  Wright  what,  from  his  inside  knowl- 
edge, he  believed  were  your  views  at  that  time ;  and  if  ever 
the  necessity  arises  for  my  interference  to  restore  order 
in  Pennsylvania  on  the  call  of  the  constituted  authorities 


206  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

or  to  protect  government  property  by  force  of  the  United 
States  regular  army,  I  shall  try  to  use  this  force  with  the 
same  firmness  that  you  showed.  But  it  has  been  rather 
exasperating  to  have  our  more  foolish  friends  yelling  that 
it  was  my  business  to  send  troops  into  Pennsylvania,  when 
there  is  as  yet  no  more  warrant  for  doing  so  than  there  is 
for  Mayor  Low  to  send  his  New  York  police  there.  Of 
course,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  cannot  send  them  in  at  present, 
when  no  government  property  has  been  menaced  and  when 
there  has  been  no  appeal  to  me  by  the  constituted  authori- 
ties. I  would  have  just  as  much  right  to  send  them  to  Troy 
when  there  was  a  railroad  strike;  or  to  have  demanded 
them  when  I  was  Police  Commissioner  and  there  was  a 
clothing  cutters'  strike. 

The  attitude  of  the  coal  operators  at  the  conference  be- 
fore me  was  very  exasperating.  They  used  language 
toward  Mitchell  and  his  colleagues  which  was  well  calcu- 
lated to  make  them  so  angry  that  they  would  consent  to 
nothing.  They  refused  point  blank  to  even  consider  what 
I  regarded  as  Mitchell's  entirely  fair  proposition.  Some 
of  them  assailed  me  for  not  having  put  troops  into  Penn- 
sylvania— they  might  just  as  well  have  assailed  you  for 
not  leading  an  independent  body  of  coal  and  iron  police 
thither — and  one,  Mr.  Wilcox,  made  a  long  argument  to 
show  that  the  Attorney  General  was  derelict  in  his  duty 
in  not  bringing  suit  to  dissolve  the  labor  union  on  the 
ground  that  it  was  violating  the  Sherman  Law.  This  last 
proposition,  by  the  way,  may  be  considered  as  an  offset  to 
the  proposition  contained  in  Mr.  Champlin's  pamphlet  to 
which  you  refer.  Under  the  Sherman  Act  Mr.  Wilcox,  on 
behalf  of  the  operators,  wishes  me  to  bring  suit  against  the 
miners,  and  Mr.  Champlin  that  I  should  bring  suit  against 
the  operators  in  the  interest  of  the  miners.  Of  course,  if 
I  brought  suit  against  either  I  should  probably  have  to 
bring  suit  against  both,  and  under  the  decision  in  the  sugar 
case  it  seems  to  me  perfectly  clear  that  neither  the  miners 
nor  the  operators,  as  such,  could  possibly  be  held  to  have 
violated  the  Sherman  Law. 


COAL  STRIKE  SETTLEMENT  207 

I  am  very  reluctant  in  view  of  the  operators '  attitude 
toward  me  to  propose  any  plan  to  them  at  all.  Curiously 
enough,  if  they  had  given  me  an  opportunity  I  should  have 
proposed  just  the  plan  you  outlined,  that  is,  that  there 
should  be  a  resumption  of  operations  until  April  first,  up 
to  which  time  the  two  parties  might  seek  to  reach  an  agree- 
ment ;  and  then,  when  the  distress  of  the  public  would  not 
be  so  terrible  on  account  of  the  approach  of  warm  weather, 
there  would  be  less  damage  from  their  going  on  with  their 
quarrel. 

By  the  way,  you  may  have  noticed  that  your  old  friend, 
The  Sun,  is  now  attacking  me  with  the  same  infamous  dis- 
regard of  truth  that  it  used  in  its  assaults  upon  you. 

I  think  I  shall  now  tell  Mitchell  that  if  the  miners  will 
go  back  to  work  I  will  appoint  a  commission  to  investigate 
the  whole  situation  and  will  do  whatever  in  my  power  lies 
to  have  the  findings  of  such  commission  favorably  acted 
upon.  This  seems  to  be  the  only  step  I  can  now  take,  or 
at  least  the  best  step  at  the  moment  to  take.  I  feel  the 
gravest  apprehension  concerning  the  misery  pending  over 
so  many  people  this  winter  and  the  consequent  rioting 
which  may  and  probably  will  ensue. 

Now,  my  dear  sir,  let  me  thank  you  again  for  the  real  aid 
and  comfort  you  have  given  me.  You  know  what  a  pleasure 
it  is  to  hear  from  you  at  any  time.  By  the  way,  I  was  very 
glad  to  be  able  to  make  your  friend  O'Reilly  Surgeon 
General.     I  know  how  well  you  think  of  him. 

With  warm  regards  to  Mrs.  Cleveland, 

Faithfully  yours, 
(Signed)       Theodore  Roosevelt. 

Hon.  Grover  Cleveland, 
Princeton,  N.  J. 

P.  S.  Of  course,  if  the  Pennsylvania  authorities  would 
do  their  whole  duty,  there  would  be  no  need  to  appeal  to 
me  at  all. 

Writing  to  Robert  Bacon,  on  October  5,  1902,  the  Presi- 
dent said: 


208  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

"The  situation  is  bad,  especially  because  it  is  possible 
it  may  grow  infinitely  worse.  If  when  the  severe  weather 
comes  on  there  is  a  coal  famine  I  dread  to  think  of  the  suf- 
fering, in  parts  of  our  great  cities  especially,  and  I  fear 
there  will  be  fuel  riots  of  as  bad  a  type  as  any  bread  riots 
we  have  ever  seen.  Of  course,  once  the  rioting  has  begun, 
once  there  is  a  resort  to  mob  violence,  the  only  thing  to  do 
is  to  maintain  order.  It  is  a  dreadful  thing  to  be  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  necessity  of  taking  measures,  how- 
ever unavoidable,  which  will  mean  the  death  of  men  who 
have  been  maddened  by  want  and  suffering." 

The  radical  nature  of  some  of  the  appeals  that  reached 
him  is  shown  in  a  letter  to  Senator  Lodge  on  October  7, 
1902: 

"I  am  feeling  my  way  step  by  step  trying  to  get  a  solu- 
tion of  the  coal  matter.  Most  of  my  correspondents  wish 
me  to  try  something  violent  or  impossible.  A  minor  but 
very  influential  part  desire  that  I  send  troops  at  once  with- 
out a  shadow  of  warrant  into  the  coal  districts,  or  that  I 
bring  suit  against  the  labor  organization.  The  others  de- 
mand that  I  bring  suit  against  the  operators,  or  that  under 
the  law  of  eminent  domain,  or  for  the  purpose  of  protect- 
ing the  public  health,  I  seize  their  property,  or  appoint  a 
receiver,  or  do  something  else  that  is  wholly  impossible. 
My  great  concern  is,  of  course,  to  break  the  famine ;  but  I 
must  not  be  drawn  into  any  violent  step  which  would  bring 
reaction  and  disaster  afterward.' ' 

In  a  statement  of  his  position  which  he  wrote  to  me  on 
October  13,  1902,  he  left  no  doubt  as  to  his  attitude  toward 
violence :  ' '  Most  emphatically  I  shall  not  compromise  with 
lawlessness.  I  have  been  told,  on  excellent  authority,  that 
the  disorder  has  been  very  great  and  of  very  evil  kind. 
On  equally  good  authority,  I  am  told  the  exact  contrary. 
I  shall  speedily  find  out  for  myself.  I  stand  against  social- 
ism ;  against  anarchic  disorder. ' ' 

The  President  wrote  again  to  Mr.  Cleveland  on  October 


COAL  STRIKE  SETTLEMENT  209 

10,  regretting  that  he  could  not,  because  of  the  injury  to  his 
leg,  accept  the  latter 's  invitation  to  be  his  guest  at  Prince- 
ton during  the  inauguration  of  Woodrow  Wilson  to  the 
Presidency  of  Princeton  University  on  the  25th  of  that 
month,  and  adding: 

"Now  I  am  going  to  requite  you  ill  for  your  hospitality 
by  asking  you  to  do  a  service  which  I  know  you  will  be 
most  reluctant  to  undertake,  and  which  I  only  ask  because 
I  feel  we  are  in  the  midst  of  so  serious  a  crisis  and  one  so 
deeply  affecting  the  welfare  of  our  people. 

"My  efforts  to  get  the  operators  and  miners  to  agree 
failed,  chiefly  through  the  fault  of  the  operators.  I  then 
asked  the  miners  to  go  back  to  work  so  that  the  pressing 
necessities  of  the  public  might  be  met,  promising  at  once 
to  appoint  such  a  commission  as  Mr.  Mitchell  had  suggested 
and  stating  that  I  would  do  all  in  my  power  to  have  the 
recommendations  of  that  commission  adopted,  of  course 
meaning  that  I  should  do  all  in  my  power  to  have  whatever 
legislation  they  advocated  enacted,  as  well  as  making  up 
their  recommendations  in  all  other  ways.  But  Mitchell  re- 
fused on  behalf  of  the  miners  to  entertain  this  proposition. 
In  other  words,  both  sides  have  resolutely  persisted  in 
regarding  first  their  own  interests  and  treating  the  inter- 
ests of  the  public  as  wholly  secondary,  and  indeed  as  not 
to  be  considered  at  all. 

"I  shall  now  direct  Carroll  D.  Wright  to  make  a  full  and 
careful  investigation  of  the  present  conditions  and  of  the 
causes  that  have  led  to  these  conditions,  including  the  ques- 
tion whether  there  has  been  violence  and  if  so  to  what  ex- 
tent ;  and  what  if  any  steps  should  be  taken  to  prevent  the 
recurrence  of  these  conditions.  I  wish  to  join  with  him 
two  eminent  men — men  of  such  character  that  save  in  a 
crisis  like  this  I  would  not  dream  of  appealing  to  them  to 
render  any  Government  service.  In  all  the  country  there 
is  no  man  whose  name  would  add  such  weight  to  this  in- 
quiry as  would  yours.  I  earnestly  beg  you  to  say  that  you 
will  accept.  I  am  well  aware  of  the  great  strain  I  put 
upon  you  by  making  such  a  request.    I  would  not  make  it 


210  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

if  I  did  not  feel  that  the  calamity  now  impending  over  our 
people  may  have  consequences  which  without  exaggeration 
are  to  be  called  terrible ;  and  I  feel  that  your  services  may 
be  invaluable  to  the  nation  at  this  time." 

Eeplying  on  October  12,  1902,  Mr.  Cleveland  wrote : 

My  dear  Mr,  President: 

Since  the  receipt  of  your  letter  yesterday  I  have  given 
its  subject  matter  serious  consideration. 

You  rightly  appreciate  my  reluctance  to  assume  any 
public  service.  I  am  also  quite  certain  that  if  my  advice 
was  asked  as  to  the  expediency  of  naming  me  in  the  con- 
nection you  mention,  I  should,  as  a  matter  of  judgment, 
not  favor  it. 

I  cannot,  however,  with  proper  deference  to  your  opinion, 
consider  this  phase  of  the  question  as  open  to  discussion. 
I  have  therefore  felt  that  I  had  only  to  determine  whether 
your  request  involved  a  duty  which  I  ought  not  to  avoid, 
and  whether  my  engagements  and  the  present  demands 
upon  my  time  would  permit  me  to  undertake  it. 

So  far  as  the  latter  are  concerned  this  is  my  situation: 
I  am  to  take  part  and  say  something  at  President  Wilson 's 
inauguration  on  the  25th  inst.,  and  I  have  agreed  to  do  the 
same  at  the  opening  of  the  new  building  of  the  Chamber 
of  Commerce  in  New  York  on  the  11th  of  November.  My 
preparation  for  the  inaugural  exercises  is  complete ;  but  for 
the  other  occasion  it  is  hardly  begun.  I  am  absurdly  slow 
in  such  work. 

I  have  no  idea  of  the  time  which  would  be  exacted  by  a 
compliance  with  your  request,  nor  how  early  you  would 
expect  a  result  from  the  Commission. 

I  feel  so  deeply  the  gravity  of  the  situation,  and  I  so 
fully  sympathize  with  you  in  your  efforts  to  remedy  pres- 
ent sad  conditions,  that  I  believe  it  is  my  duty  to  undertake 
the  service  if  I  can  do  so  and  keep  the  engagements  I  have 
already  made. 

This  I  will  leave  for  your  decision — only  suggesting  that 


COAL  STRIKE  SETTLEMENT  211 

I  ought  to  have  the  next  week  at  least  for  preparation  to 
keep  my  New  York  engagement. 

If  after  reading  this  you  shall  notify  me  that  you  still 
think  I  can  undertake  the  duty  you  suggest,  will  you  deem 
it  amiss  if  I  hint  that  I  should  be  glad  to  know  who  the 
third  member  of  the  Commission  will  hel 

Your  obedient  servant, 

Grover  Cleveland. 

This  letter  contains  a  reference  to  a  plan  which  the  Presi- 
dent had  formed,  but  had  not  disclosed,  when  his  efforts 
with  the  operators  and  mine  workers  had  failed.  He  had 
decided  that  if  they  would  not  consent  to  the  appointment 
of  a  commission,  he  would  resort  to  drastic  measures,  as- 
sume powers  which  the  Constitution  did  not  specifically 
give  him,  and  appoint  an  investigating  or  arbitrating  com- 
mission without  regard  to  whether  or  not  the  operators 
asked  for  it  or  agreed  to  abide  by  its  decisions.  He  asked 
Mr.  Cleveland,  in  the  letter  quoted  above,  to  accept  a  place 
on  such  a  commission,  with  Carroll  D.  Wright  and  one 
other  person.  Mr.  Cleveland's  reply,  which  is  given  above, 
shows  that  he  was  not  troubled  with  doubts  about  the  uncon- 
stitutionality of  the  President's  proposal,  for  he  gave  his 
consent  to  serve. 

This  commission  was  only  part  of  the  President's  plan. 
The  investigation  which  it  was  to  conduct  would  take  time. 
In  order  that  mining  operations  might  be  resumed  as 
speedily  as  possible,  the  President  consulted  with  Senator 
Quay,  who  was  all  powerful  in  Pennsylvania  politics,  and 
was  assured  by  him  that  whenever  the  President  desired 
him  to  do  so  he  would  have  the  Governor  of  the  State  notify 
the  President  that  he  could  not  keep  order  in  the  coal  re- 
gions and  needed  Federal  interference.  The  President 
then  informed  Major-General  John  M.  Schofield  that  in 
case  of  Federal  interference  he  wished  to  send  him  to  the 
coal  regions  with  the  regular  army  troops  with  instruc- 
tions to  act  as  receiver  of  the  mines,  take  full  charge,  put 
down  all  violence,  and  disregard  any  orders    from    the 


212  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

operators.  The  President  asked  the  General  if,  in  case 
the  operators  went  to  court  and  had  a  writ  served  on  him, 
he  would  do  as  was  done  under  Lincoln,  simply  send  the  writ 
on  to  the  President.  After  a  little  thought  the  General  re- 
plied that  he  would.  Eoosevelt  said :  "  All  right,  I  will  send 
you." 

No  one  except  Senator  Quay,  General  Schofield  and  two 
memhers  of  Eoosevelt 's  Cabinet  had  knowledge  of  this 
part  of  the  President 's  plan.  He  had  arranged  with  Sena- 
tor Quay,  who  was  in  Pennsylvania,  to  telegraph  to  him 
when  the  moment  arrived  at  which  he  (Eoosevelt)  wished 
the  Governor  to  notify  him  of  his  need  of  Federal  inter- 
ference; the  message  was  to  be:  "The  time  for  the  re- 
quest has  come."  The  President  had  all  preparations 
made  for  starting  the  troops  within  half  an  hour. 

Whether  knowledge  of  the  President's  purpose  leaked 
out  or  not  cannot  be  stated,  but  something  acted  as  a 
powerful  incentive  upon  the  operators,  producing  a  sud- 
den change  of  front.  It  may  have  been  a  hint  of  Mr.  Cleve- 
land's willingness  to  stand  openly  with  the  President. 

After  receipt  of  Mr.  Cleveland's  letter  of  consent,  Secre- 
tary Eoot,  at  the  President's  request,  went  to  New  York 
on  a  private  mission.  In  a  letter,  written  to  the  President 
on  June  23,  1903,  to  contradict  some  erroneous  assertions 
about  the  coal  strike  settlement  that  had  been  made  in  a 
newspaper,  Secretary  Eoot  described  this  mission  and  its 
results  as  follows,  showing  that  the  operators  refused  to 
accept  Mr.  Cleveland  as  a  member  of  the  commission, 
being  naturally  unwilling  to  have  such  convincing  evidence 
as  would  thereby  be  given  to  the  public  of  the  wisdom  and 
justice  of  the  President's  course: 

"I  went  to  New  York  and  spent  the  better  part  of  a  day 
with  Mr.  J.  P.  Morgan  on  his  yacht  Corsair,  and  during 
this  interview  we  drafted  an  agreement  of  arbitration  for 
a  commission  to  be  appointed  by  you.  Mr.  Morgan  got  the 
signature  of  the  operators  to  this  paper  with  a  single  modi- 
fication. The  modification  required  that  the  arbitrators 
appointed    by    you    should    belong    to    certain    specified 


COAL  STRIKE  SETTLEMENT  213 

classes — an  army  engineer,  a  business  man  familiar  with 
the  coal  business,  a  Judge  of  the  locality,  a  sociologist,  etc., 
etc.  When  this  paper  was  presented  to  the  miners  they  in 
turn  wished  for  some  modification  of  the  proposal,  and  it 
appeared  that  they  would  be  satisfied  to  enter  into  the 
agreement  if  Bishop  Spalding  could  be  added  to  the  list  of 
arbitrators,  and  Mr.  Clark  could  be  appointed  to  the  place 
which  called  for  a  sociologist.  As  the  operators'  signa- 
tures had  been  obtained  by  Mr.  Morgan,  in  order  to  ascer- 
tain whether  the  operators  would  assent  to  these  appoint-  W1 
ments  I  telegraphed  for  some  member  of  Mr.  Morgan's 
firm  to  come  to  Washington,  and  Mr.  Bacon  and  Mr.  Perkins  p 
came,  and  upon  learning  the  situation  they  opened  tele-  J 
phonic  communication  with  the  representatives  of  the  oper-  x' 
ators  in  New  York,  and  secured  their  assent  to  the  appoint- 
ment of  Bishop  Spalding  and  Mr.  Clark.  When  that  had 
been  done  you  asked  Mr.  Bacon  and  Mr.  Perkins  if  the  oper- 
ators would  not  consent  to  have  Mr.  Cleveland  appointed  in 
lieu  of  an  appointment  of  an  army  engineer,  saying  that  you 
had  already  asked  him  to  act  on  a  committee  of  investiga- 
tion and  had  secured  his  assent,  and  that  you  would  like  to 
appoint  him  as  one  of  the  arbitrators.  They  went  away,  and 
after  a  short  time  came  back  and  said  they  had  communi- 
cated with  the  operators  by  telephone,  and  the  operators 
would  not  assent  to  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Cleveland  in 
lieu  of  an  army  engineer,  or  to  any  further  change  in  their 
proposal.' 9 

When  the  refusal  of  the  operators  to  accept  Mr.  Cleve- 
land was  communicated  to  the  President,  he  sent  the  follow- 
ing telegram  and  letter  to  him  on  October  16,  1902 : 

The  White  House, 

Washington,  October  16,  1902. 
Hon.  Grover  Cleveland,  Princeton,  N.  J. 

Deeply  grateful  for  your  letter.  Propositions  that  have 
been  made  since  have  totally  changed  situation  so  that  I 
will  not  have  to  make  the  demand  upon  you  which  three 


214  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

days  ago  it  seemed  I  would  have  to  for  the  interest  of  the 
nation.  I  thank  you  most  deeply  and  shall  write  you  at 
length. 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 

My  dear  Mr.  Cleveland: 

I  appreciated  so  deeply  your  being  willing  to  accept  that 
it  was  very  hard  for  me  to  forego  the  chance  of  putting  you 
on  the  commission.  But  in  order  to  get  the  vitally  neces- 
sary agreement  between  the  operators  and  miners  I  found 
I  had  to  consult  their  wishes  as  to  the  types  of  men.  Of 
course  I  knew  that  it  was  the  greatest  relief  to  you  not  to 
be  obliged  to  serve,  but  I  did  wish  to  have  you  on,  in  the 
first  place,  because  of  the  weight  your  name  would  have 
lent  the  commission,  and  in  the  next  place,  because  of  the 
effect  upon  our  people,  and  especially  upon  our  young  men, 
of  such  an  example  of  genuine  self-denying  patriotism — 
for,  my  dear  sir,  your  service  would  have  meant  all  this. 
I  do  not  know  whether  you  understand  how  heartily  I  thank 
you  and  appreciate  what  you  have  done. 

Faithfully  yours, 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 

An  entertaining  account  of  the  final  agreement  is  given 
by  the  President  in  this  letter  to  Senator  Lodge  under  date 
of  October  17,  1902: 

' l  The  crisis  came  at  the  last  moment.  Between  the  hours 
of  10  p.  m.  and  1  a.  m.,  I  had  Bacon  and  Perkins  on  here,  on 
behalf  of  Morgan  but  really  representing  the  operators. 
Neither  Morgan  nor  any  one  else  had  been  able  to  do  much 
with  those  wooden-headed  gentry,  and  Bacon  and  Perkins 
were  literally  almost  crazy.  Bacon  in  particular  had  be- 
come so  excited  that  I  was  quite  concerned  over  his  condi- 
tion. The  operators  had  limited  me  down  by  a  full  proviso, 
to  five  different  types  of  men,  including  'an  eminent  sociolo- 
gist.' This  was  a  ridiculous  proviso  because  I  could  have 
appointed  bad  men  in  every  case  and  yet  be  kept  to  its 
letter;  and  they  ought  to  have  given  me  a  free  hand.    The 


COAL  STRIKE  SETTLEMENT  215 

miners,  on  the  other  hand,  wanted  me  to  appoint  at  least 
two  extra  members  myself,  or  in  some  fashion  to  get  Bishop 
Spalding  (whom  I  myself  wanted),  and  the  labor  union  man 
on  the  commission.  I  regarded  their  contention  as  per- 
fectly reasonable,  and  so  informed  Bacon  and  Perkins  and 
the  operators.  The  operators  refused  point  blank  to  have 
another  man  added,  and  Bacon  and  Perkins  came  on  nearly 
wild  to  say  that  they  had  full  power  to  treat  on  behalf 
of  the  operators,  but  that  no  extra  man  should  be  added. 
Finally  it  developed  that  what  they  meant  was  that  no  extra 
man  should  be  added  if  he  was  a  representative  of  organ- 
ized labor ;  and  argue  as  I  could,  nothing  would  make  them 
change ;  although  they  grew  more  and  more  hysterical,  and 
not  merely  admitted,  but  insisted,  that  the  failure  to  agree 
meant  probable  violence  and  possible  social  war. 

"It  took  me  about  two  hours  before  I  at  last  grasped  the 
fact  that  the  mighty  brains  of  these  captains  of  industry 
had  formulated  the  theory  that  they  would  rather  have 
anarchy  than  tweedledum,  but  if  I  would  use  the  word 
tweedledee  they  would  hail  it  as  meaning  peace.  In  other 
words,  that  they  had  not  the  slightest  objection  to  my  ap- 
pointing a  labor  man  as  an  ' eminent  sociologist,'  and  add- 
ing Bishop  Spalding  on  my  own  account,  but  they  preferred 
to  see  the  Red  Commune  come  rather  than  to  have  me  make 
Bishop  Spalding  or  any  one  else  'the  eminent  sociologist' 
and  add  the  labor  man.  I  instantly  told  them  that  I  had 
not  the  slightest  objection  whatever  to  doing  an  absurd 
thing  when  it  was  necessary  to  meet  the  objection  of  an 
absurd  mind  on  some  vital  point,  and  that  I  would  cheer- 
fully appoint  my  labor  man  as  the  'eminent  sociologist.' 
It  was  almost  impossible  for  me  to  appreciate  the  instant 
and  tremendous  relief  this  gave  them.  They  saw  nothing 
offensive  in  my  language  and  nothing  ridiculous  in  the 
proposition,  and  Pierpont  Morgan  and  Baer,  when  called 
up  by  telephone,  eagerly  ratified  the  absurdity;  and  ac- 
cordingly, at  this  utterly  unimportant  price,  we  bid  fair  to 
come  out  of  as  dangerous  a  situation  as  I  ever  dealt  with. ' ' 


216  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Writing  to  Finley  Peter  Dunne  ("Mr.  Dooley")  a  few 
days  after  agreement  was  reached,  October  20,  1902,  the 
President  revealed  his  thorough  enjoyment  of  the  final 
scene : 

"I  have  not  had  the  heart  to  write  to  you  until  this  coal 
strike  was  out  of  the  way.  Now  I  feel  like  throwing  up  my 
hands  and  going  to  the  circus ;  but  as  that  is  not  possible  I 
think  I  shall  try  a  turkey  shoot  or  bear  hunt  or  something 
of  the  kind  instead.  Nothing  that  you  have  ever  written 
can  begin  to  approach  in  screaming  comedy  the  inside  of 
the  last  few  conferences  before  I  appointed  the  strike  com- 
mission, and  especially  the  complicated  maneuvers  by 
which,  weaving  in  and  out  among  the  tender  susceptibilities 
of  the  operators  and  the  miners,  I  finally  succeeded  in 
reconciling  both  to  the  appointment  of  the  president  of  the 
labor  union  as  an  i  eminent  sociologist/  " 

The  appointment  of  the  commission  was  hailed  with 
universal  relief  and  approval,  for  pending  the  investiga- 
tion work  in  the  mines  was  to  be  resumed  at  once.  From 
one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other  the  President  was 
praised  for  his  efforts,  and  there  was  not  a  dissenting  voice 
anywhere,  even  the  most  zealous  guardians  of  the  Con- 
stitution joining  in  it.  Foreign  newspapers  also  joined  in 
the  chorus  of  approval,  the  London  Times  saying: 

"In  a  most  quiet  and  unobtrusive  manner  the  President 
has  done  a  very  big  and  entirely  new  thing.  We  are  wit- 
nessing not  merely  the  ending  of  the  coal  strike,  but  the 
definite  entry  of  a  powerful  Government  upon  a  novel 
sphere  of  operation.  President  Eoosevelt  did  not  assume 
his  task  as  the  amateur  mediator;  he  did  not  enter  upon 
it  without  counting  the  cost,  or  without  the  support  of  con- 
victions and  ideas  far  outrunning  the  ostensible  subject- 
matter  of  his  action.  His  personal  prestige  and  reputation 
are  enormously  enhanced  by  the  immediate  public  service 
he  has  rendered,  and  they  will  be  immeasurably  enhanced 
when  the  American  people  grasp,  as  they  rapidly  will,  the 


COAL  STRIKE  SETTLEMENT  217 

far  larger  issues  involved  in  his  striking  departure  from 
precedent. 

"Let  the  Americans  stick  to  their  President  and 
strengthen  his  hands.  If  there  is  any  living  man  who  can 
show  them  the  way  out  of  the  dangers  threatening  them, 
that  man  is  Mr.  Roosevelt." 

Writing  to  me  on  October  18,  1902,  he  said : 
"I  am  being  very  much  overpraised  by  everybody,  and 
although  I  suppose  I  like  it,  it  makes  me  feel  uncomfortable 
too.  Mind  you,  I  speak  the  literal  truth  when  I  say  I  know 
perfectly  well  I  do  not  deserve  what  is  said  of  me.  It 
really  seems  to  me  that  any  man  of  average  courage  and 
common-sense,  who  felt  as  deeply  as  I  did  the  terrible 
calamity  impending  over  our  people,  would  have  done  just 
what  I  did." 

The  Commission  was  announced  on  October  15,  as  fol- 
lows : 

Brigadier  General  John  M.  Wilson,  retired,  formerly 
Chief  of  Engineers,  U.S.A. ;  E.  W.  Parker,  expert  mining 
engineer,  chief  statistician  of  the  coal  division  of  the  U.  S. 
Geological  Survey  and  editor  of  The  Engineering  and 
Mining  Journal;  George  Gray,  Judge  of  the  United  States 
Circuit  Court,  Delaware ;  E.  E.  Clark,  Chief  of  the  Order  of 
Eailway  Conductors,  sociologist;  Thomas  H.  Watkins, 
practically  connected  with  the  mining  and  selling  of.  coal ; 
Bishop  John  L.  Spalding,  of  Illinois;  Carroll  D.  Wright, 
U.  S.  Commissioner  of  Labor,  Recorder  of  the  Commission. 

The  Commission,  which  was  accepted  by  the  operators, 
and  by  the  mine  workers  in  convention,  came  together  at 
the  White  House  on  October  24,  1902,  for  organization  and 
for  instructions  from  the  President.  Judge  Gray  was 
chosen  Chairman.    In  a  brief  address,  the  President  said : 

"By  the  action  you  recommend,  which  the  parties  in 
interest  have  in  advance  consented  to  abide  by,  you  will 
endeavor  to  establish  the  relations  between  the  employers 
and  the  wage  workers  in  the  anthracite  fields  on  a  just  and 
permanent  basis,  and  as  far  as  possible  to  do  away  with  any 


218  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

causes  for  the  recurrence  of  such  difficulties  as  those  which 
you  have  been  called  to  settle.' ' 

The  Commission  began  its  labors  at  once  and  continued 
them  for  nearly  four  months,  hearing  a  great  mass  of  testi- 
mony and  thoroughly  investigating  all  phases  of  the  prob- 
lem. Its  report  was  completed  in  March,  1903,  presented 
to  the  President  on  the  21st  of  the  month,  and  published 
in  the  newspapers  on  the  following  day.  As  both  parties 
to  the  Commission's  inquiry  had  pledged  themselves  in 
advance  to  abide  by  its  decisions,  there  was  no  question  of 
acceptance,  but  both  parties  expressed  themselves  publicly 
as  fully  satisfied  with  the  findings,  each  claiming  a  victory 
over  the  other. 

The  verdict  by  press  and  public  was  one  of  unanimous 
approval.  That  uttered  by  the  Tribune,  on  March  22,  1903, 
may  be  cited  as  a  fairly  accurate  sample  of  the  whole : 

"  '  A  sweeping  victory  for  the  miners ! '  exclaims  one 
commentator  upon  the  report  of  the  President's  Commis- 
sion on  the  anthracite  coal  strike.  'A  bomb  in  labor  circles !' 
declares  another  with  equal  assurance.  Both  are  wrong. 
The  report  gives  victory  to  one  of  the  parties  to  the  con- 
troversy. But  it  is  not  the  miners,  nor  is  it  the  operators. 
It  is  rather  that  third  party  whose  interests  are  permanent, 
though  too  often  overlooked  by  both  the  others  and  their 
hot  champions — the  public.  So  far  as  the  two  parties  first 
named  are  concerned,  each  has  partly  won  and  partly  lost, 
as  was  to  be  expected.  The  public,  whose  demands  were 
simply  that  justice  should  prevail,  seems  to  have  won  on 
every  point. 

"It  was  a  generous  and  patriotic  act  of  the  President  to 
intervene  in  the  strike,  appoint  this  Commission,  set  the 
mines  in  operation  again,  and  thus  fill  the  empty  coal  bins 
throughout  the  land.  It  has  also  been  a  generous  and  patri- 
otic act  of  the  Commissioners  to  investigate  the  matter  be- 
fore them  in  so  impartial  and  painstaking  a  manner,  to 
make  at  the  end  so  wise  and  just  a  report.  To  the  President 
and  to  them  the  sincere  gratitude  of  the  nation  is  due." 


COAL  STRIKE  SETTLEMENT  219 

The  main  points  of  the  Commission's  findings  were  that 
the  miners  should  have  a  ten  per  cent  increase  in  wages; 
that  non-union  labor  and  union  labor  should  be  treated  on 
equal  terms ;  that  all  disputes  between  operators  and  min- 
ers should  be  referred  to  a  Board  of  Conciliation  of  six 
members,  three  chosen  by  the  operators  and  three  by  the 
organizations  of  mine  workers;  in  case  of  failure  by  the 
Board  to  agree,  the  question  in  dispute  should  be  referred 
to  a  United  States  Circuit  Judge  of  the  District  as  umpire, 
and  his  decision  should  be  final.  The  findings  of  the  Com- 
mission were  to  be  obligatory  upon  operators  and  workers 
for  three  years.  ^ 

Time  has  completely  justified  the  President's  course.  1 
Not  only  did  the  findings  of  the  Commission  secure  peace 
in  the  anthracite  mines  during  the  three  stipulated  years, 
but  permanently,  for  since  1902  there  has  been  no  strike^J 
there  and  no  serious  labor  trouble.  The  system  of  settling 
disputes  has  worked  smoothly  and  with  entire  success. 
Among  other  direful  predictions  that  were  made  anent  the 
President's  course  was  one  that  in  interfering  in  a  labor 
dispute  he  had  established  a  precedent  that  would  lead  to 
constant  interference  of  the  same  sort  in  future  and  would 
encourage  all  labor  agitators  to  promote  strikes  in  the  con- 
fident belief  that  the  President  of  the  United  States  would 
intervene  and  settle  them.  Not  a  single  instance  of  the 
kind  has  occurred  which  can  be  traced  to  President  Boose- 
velt's  action  as  the  inspiring  cause.  The  great  lesson  of 
the  settlement  which  the  President  had  secured  and  which 
impressed  the  people  of  the  land  was  that  the  labor  prob- 
lem had  entered  upon  a  new  phase,  was  no  longer  only  an 
economic  problem,  but  a  moral  and  human  one.  The  work- 
ers had  been  compelled  to  unite  to  secure  not  merely  their 
economic  but  their  simple  human  rights,  and  a  body  of 
men  who  commanded  the  respect  and  confidence  of  the 
country  had  decreed  that  those  human  rights  should  be 
recognized  and  protected. 

When  the  report  of  the  Commission  was  received  by  the 
President,  he  wrote  as  follows  to  Judge  Gray : 


220  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

White  House,  Washington, 

March  24,  1903. 
My  dear  Judge  Gray: 

Pray  permit  me  through  you  to  thank  the  members  of 
the  Anthracite  Coal  Strike  Commission  for  as  important 
a  piece  of  public  service  as  any  equal  number  of  men  have 
in  our  time  rendered  the  country.  When  you  were  ap- 
pointed, we  were  within  measurable  distance  of  a  great 
national  calamity.  By  your  acceptance  of  the  position,  and 
the  wisdom,  fearlessness  and  absolute  fairness  of  your 
course  since,  you  not  only  averted  that  calamity  but  per- 
formed great  and  lasting  service  to  the  nation.  This  service 
was  rendered  at  a  heavy  personal  cost  to  each  of  you,  and 
to  those  of  your  body  who  were  in  public  service  it  was 
simply  an  additional  burden.  But  such  service  as  you  gave 
could  not  be  bought,  and  perhaps  it  is  as  well  for  the  coun- 
try that  it  should  be  given  at  a  personal  sacrifice,  as  was 
true  in  this  case.    Thanking  you  again  most  heartily,  I  am 

Sincerely  yours, 
(Signed)      Theodobe  Eoosevelt. 


CHAPTEE  XX 
THE  KAISER  AND  VENEZUELA 

Eably  in  December,  1902,  an  opportunity  came  for  the 
President  to  assert  the  position  he  had  held  for  many  years 
in  regard  to  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  and  he  was  quick  to  seize 
it.  No  publicity  was  given  at  the  time,  nor  for  many  years 
afterward,  to  the  manner  in  which  he  compelled  the  German 
Kaiser  to  execute  a  complete  backdown.  Details  of  the  in- 
cident were  published  for  the  first  time  in  1915,  in  William 
Eoscoe  Thayer 's  "Life  of  John  Hay."  The  publication 
would  have  attracted  wide  attention  in  ordinary  times,  and 
coming  as  it  did  in  the  first  year  of  Germany's  great  war 
with  the  rest  of  the  world,  it  aroused  especial  and  very  deep 
interest.  There  was  some  question  raised  as  to  the  authen- 
ticity of  the  author's  story,  and  to  corroborate  its  truth 
and  prevent  all  future  denial,  Eoosevelt  wrote  a  letter 
to  Mr.  Thayer  in  which  he  gave  his  personal  version 
of  the  incident,  and  supplemented  Mr.  Thayer's  version 
with  some  corroborative  evidence  which  had  recently  come 
into  his  possession  and  which  established  its  accuracy  be- 
yond dispute.  This  letter  was  published  later  as  an  ap- 
pendix in  a  second  edition  of  Mr.  Thayer's  book.  In  ac- 
cordance with  the  expressed  wish  of  Eoosevelt  it  is  repro- 
duced here  as  the  final  and  authoritative  account  of  the 
incident : 

Sagamore  Hill,  August  21,  1916. 
My  dear  Mr,  Thayer: 

There  is  now  no  reason  why  I  should  not  speak  of  the 
facts  connected  with  the  disagreement  between  the  United 
States  and  Germany  over  the  Venezuela  matter,  in  the 
early  part  of  my  administration  as  President,  and  of  the 
final  amicable  settlement  of  the  disagreement. 

221. 


222  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

At  that  time  the  Venezuelan  Dictator — President  Castro 
— had  committed  various  offenses  against  different  Euro- 
pean nations,  including  Germany  and  England.  The  Eng- 
lish Government  was  then  endeavoring  to  keep  on  good 
terms  with  Germany,  and  on  this  occasion  acted  jointly  with 
her.  Germany  sent  a  squadron  of  war  vessels  to  the  Vene- 
zuelan coast,  and  they  were  accompanied  by  some  English 
war  vessels.  There  was  no  objection  whatever  to  Castro's 
being  punished,  as  long  as  the  punishment  did  not  take  the 
form  of  seizure  of  territory  and  its  more  or  less  permanent 
occupation  by  some  Old-World  power.  At  this  particular 
point,  such  seizure  of  territory  would  have  been  a  direct 
menace  to  the  United  States,  because  it  would  have  threat- 
ened or  partially  controlled  the  approach  to  the  projected 
Isthmian  Canal. 

/  I  speedily  became  convinced  that  Germany  was  the 
leader,  and  the  really  formidable  party  in  the  transaction ; 
and  that  England  was  merely  ^following  Germany's  lead 
in  rather  half-hearted  fashion.  ^  I  became  convinced  that 
England  would  not  back  Germany  in  the  event  of  a  clash 
over  the  matter  between  Germany  and  the  United  States, 
but  would  remain  neutral ;  I  did  not  desire  that  she  should 
do  more  than  remain  neutral.  I  also  became  convinced  that 
Germany  intended  to  seize  some  Venezuelan  harbor  and 
turn  it  into  a  strongly  fortified  place  of  arms,  on  the  model 
of  Kiauchau,  with  a  view  to  exercising  some  degree  of  con- 
trol over  the  future  Isthmian  Canal,  and  over  South  Ameri- 
can affairs  generally. 
/  For  some  time  the  usual  methods  of  diplomatic  inter- 
course were  tried.  Germany  declined  to  agree  to  arbitrate 
the  question  at  issue  between  her  and  Venezuela,  and  de- 
clined to  say  that  she  would  not  take  possession  of  Vene- 
zuelan territory,  merely  saying  that  such  possession  would 
be  "temporary" — which  might  mean  anything.  I  finally 
decided  that  no  useful  purpose  would  be  served  by  further 
delay,  and  I  took  action  accordingly.  I  assembled  our 
battle  fleet,  under  Admiral  Dewey,  near  Porto  Rico,  for 
"  maneuvers/ '  with  instructions  that  the  fleet  should  be 


THE  KAISER  AND  VENEZUELA  223 

kept  in  hand  and  in  fighting  trim,  and  should  be  ready  to 
sail  at  an  hour  's  notice. )  The  fact  that  the  fleet  was  in  West 
Indian  waters  was  of  course  generally  known;  but  I  be- 
lieve that  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  and  Admiral  Dewey, 
and  perhaps  his  Chief  of  Staff,  and  the  Secretary  of  State, 
John  Hay,  were  the  only  persons  who  knew  about  the  order 
for  the  fleet  to  be  ready  to  sail  at  an  hour's  notice.  I  told 
John  Hay  that  I  would  now  see  the  German  Ambassador, 
Herr  von  Holleben,  myself,  and  that  I  intended  to  bring 
matters  to  an  early  conclusion.  Our  navy  was  in  very  ef- 
ficient condition,  being  superior  to  the  German  navy. 

I  saw  the  Ambassador,  and  explained  that  in  view  of  the 
presence  of  the  German  Squadron  on  the  Venezuelan  coast 
I  could  not  permit  longer  delay  in  answering  my  request 
for  an  arbitration,  and  that  I  could  not  acquiesce  in  any 
seizure  of  Venezuelan  territory.  The  Ambassador  re- 
sponded that  his  government  could  not  agree  to  arbitrate, 
and  that  there  was  no  intention  to  take  "permanent"  pos- 
session of  Venezuelan  territory.  I  answered  that  Kiauchau 
was.  not  a  "permanent"  possession  of  Germany — that  I 
understood  that  it  was  merely  held  by  a  99  years'  lease; 
and  that  I  did  not  intend  to  have  another  Kiauchau,  held 
by  similar  tenure,  on  the  approach  to  the  Isthmian  Canal. 
/The  Ambassador  repeated  that  his  government  would  not 
agree  to  arbitrate.  I  then  asked  him  to  inform  his  govern- 
ment that  if  no  notification  for  arbitration  came  within  a 
certain  specified  number  of  days  I  should  be  obliged  to 
order  Dewey  to  take  his  fleet  to  the  Venezuelan  coast  and 
see  that  the  German  forces  did  not  take  possession  of  any 
territory.  He  expressed  very  grave  concern,  and  asked  me 
if  I  realized  the  serious  consequences  that  would  follow 
such  action ;  consequences  so  serious  to  both  countries  that 
he  dreaded  to  give  them  a  name.  I  answered  that  I  had 
thoroughly  counted  the  cost  before  I  decided  on  the  step, 
and  asked  him  to  look  at  the  map,  as  a  glance  would  show 
him  that  there  was  no  spot  in  the  world  where  Germany  in 
the  event  of  a  conflict  with  the  United  States  would  be  at  a 
greater  disadvantage  than  in  the  Caribbean  Sea. 


224  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

A  few  days  later  the  Ambassador  came  to  see  me,  talked 
pleasantly  on  several  subjects,  and  rose  to  go.  I  asked  him 
if  he  had  any  answer  to  make  from  his  government  to  my 
request,  and  when  he  said  no,  I  informed  him  that  in  such 
event  it  was  useless  to  wait  as  long  as  I  had  intended,  and 
that  Dewey  would  be  ordered  to  sail  twenty-four  hours  in 
advance  of  the  time  I  had  set.  He  expressed  deep  appre- 
hension, and  said  that  his  government  would  not  arbitrate. 
However,  less  than  twenty-four  hours  before  the  time  I 
had  appointed  for  cabling  the  order  to  Dewey,  the  Em- 
bassy notified  me  that  his  Imperial  Majesty  the  German 
Emperor  had  directed  him  to  request  me  to  undertake  the 
arbitration  myself.  I  felt,  and  publicly  expressed,  great 
gratification  at  this  outcome,  and  great  appreciation  of  the 
course  the  German  Government  had  finally  agreed  to  take. 
Later  I  received  the  consent  of  the  German  Government 
to  have  the  arbitration  undertaken  by  The  Hague  Tribunal, 
and  not  by  me. 

At  that  time  there  was  in  New  York  as  German  Consul- 
General  a  very  able  and  agreeable  man,  Dr.  Buenz,  a  na- 
tive of  Holstein.  He  was  intimate  with  a  friend  and  then 
neighbor  of  mine,  Mr.  A.  W.  Callisen,  Vhose  father  was 
born  in  Schleswig,  and  who,  incidentally,  was  and  is  exact- 
ly as  straight  an  American  as  I  am.  Mr.  Callisen  intro- 
duced Dr.  Buenz  to  me;  and  I  found  the  doctor  an  excep- 
tionally well  informed  man  about  American  matters  and 
indeed  about  world  affairs  generally.  He  was  at  my  house 
on  several  occasions,  and  I  discussed  many  things  with  him, 
including  the  German  and  American  navies.  I  had,  how- 
ever, no  idea  that  he  had  any  knowledge  whatever  of  this 
phase  of  the  Venezuelan  affair  until  after  your  book  ap- 
peared. Mr.  Callisen  happened  to  read  it,  was  much  inter- 
ested in  the  part  referring  to  Venezuela,  and  wrote  to  a 
friend  of  his,  Mr.  Ambrose  C.  Richardson,  of  Buffalo,  a 
letter  running  in  part  as  follows : 

"  *A  Chapter  of  Diplomacy '  (Mr.  Thayer's  account)  in- 
terested me  greatly,  all  the  more  as  I  knew  Dr.  Holleben 


THE  KAISER  AND  VENEZUELA  225 

personally,  and,  what  is  still  more  to  the  purpose,  his 
most  intimate  friend,  Dr.  Buenz,  at  that  time  German 
Consul-General  at  New  York.  The  story  is  absolutely  true, 
and  here  is  the  sequel. 

"  The  German  and  British  Governments  firmly  counted 
on  our  well  established  jellyfish  squashiness  and  felt  sure 
they  had  a  free  hand.  The  Kaiser  and  Junker  party  espe- 
cially had  everything  cut  and  dried,  and  counted  the  affair 
as  accomplished.  The  first  time  Holleben  informed  his 
government  that  probably  Roosevelt's  attitude  was  a  bluff; 
but  on  second  thought  went  to  his  friend  Buenz  for  advice 
as  B.  knew  the  American  people  better  than  any  German 
living,  and  was  a  close  friend  of  Roosevelt's  (I  introduced 
him)  and  hence  a  good  judge  of  the  situation.  Buenz  at 
once  assured  him  that  Roosevelt  was  not  bluffing,  and  that 
he  could  count  on  his  doing  as  threatened;  and  that  in  a 
conversation  Roosevelt  had  shown  that  he  had  an  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  strength  and  condition  of  the  German 
fleet  which  was  .  .  .  (then)  no  match  for  ours. 

"Holleben  was  obliged  to  eat  his  own  words  and  tele- 
graph in  hot  haste  to  Berlin,  where  his  message  fell  like  a 
bomb  shell.  You  know  the  rest/jThis  resulted  in  Holleben 's 
being  recalled  and  dismissed  from  the  diplomatic  ser- 
vicer]. .  .  When  he  sailed  from  Hoboken  not  a  single  mem- 
ber of  the  diplomatic  corps  or  German  official  dared  to  see 
him  off.  Only  Buenz  (and  I)  dared  to  brave  official  dis- 
approval, and  went  on  board  to  bid  him  farewell.  I  went 
at  Buenz 's  request.' ' 

A  copy  of  this  letter  came  into  my  possession  and  I 
showed  it  to  Mr.  Callisen  when  he  was  here,  at  my  house, 
on  May  7  last.  He  wrote  alongside  the  part  I  have  quoted : 
"The  above  is  absolutely  accurate.  (Signed)  A.  W.  Calli- 
sen." Mr.  Callisen  informed  me  that  he  had  not  intended 
the  letter  for  publication,  but  that  as  the  copy  had  been 
shown  to  several  people  I  was  at  liberty  to  make  whatever 
use  of  it  I  desired. 

After  your  book  appeared  some  person  wrote  a  letter 


226  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

to  the  press  stating  that  at  the  time  of  the  Venezuela  inci- 
dent the  American  fleet  was  not  mobilized  under  Admiral 
Dewey  in  the  West  Indies.  The  letter  was  sent  to  Mr. 
Henry  A.  Wise  Wood,  of.  the  National  Security  League, 
who  thereupon  wrote  to  Admiral  Dewey  for  information 
on  the  subject.    Admiral  Dewey  answered  as  follows: 

Office  of 

The  Admikal  of  the  Navy 

Washington 

May  23,  1916. 
Mr.  Henry  A.  Wise  Wood, 

25  Madison  Avenue, 
New  York  City. 
My  dear  Mr.  Wood: 

I  beg  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  your  letter  of  May  22, 
asking  me  to  set  you  right  respecting  certain  facts  regard- 
ing Colonel  Roosevelt's  action  over  Venezuela. 

I  was  at  Culebra,  Porto  Eico,  at  the  time,  in  command 
of  a  fleet  consisting  of  over  fifty  ships,  including  every 
battle  ship  and  every  torpedo  boat  that  we  had,  with  orders 
from  Washington  to  hold  the  fleet  in  hand  and  be  ready 
to  move  at  a  moment's  notice.  Fortunately,  however,  the 
whole  matter  was  amicably  adjusted,  and  there  was  no  need 
for  action. 

Hoping  the  above  statement  is  exactly  what  you  want, 
and  thanking  you  for  the  compliments  you  pay  me,  I  am, 

Very  truly  yours, 

George  Dewey. 

This  letter  was  published  in  the  press;  and  Mr.  Wood 
then  gent  me  copies  of  the  correspondence. 

Sincerely  yours, 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 

It  was  on  December  8,  1902,  that  Germany  and  England 
severed  diplomatic  relations  with  Venezuela.  President 
Roosevelt  soon  afterwards  had  with  the  German  Ambas- 


THE  KAISER  AND  VENEZUELA  227 

sador  the  first  interview  in  which  the  Ambassador  had 
claimed  that  Germany  was  establishing  a  "  pacific  block- 
ade" and  that  its  occupation  of  territory  was  only  "tem- 
porary." That  the  President  was  correct  in  his  estimate 
of  England's  attitude  was  shown  ten  days  later,  December 
18,  1902,  when  Mr.  Balfour,  then  Prime  Minister,  said  in 
the  House  of  Commons: 

"I  think  it  quite  likely  that  the  United  States  will  think 
that  there  cannot  be  such  a  thing  as  a  ' pacific  blockade,' 
and  I  personally  take  the  same  view.  Evidently  the  block- 
ade involves  a  state  of  war. ' ' 

This  declaration  was  received  with  general  approval, 
showing  that  English  opinion  was  in  accord  with  it.  It  was 
published  prominently  in  American  newspapers  and  the 
German  Ambassador  undoubtedly  saw  it.  On  December  18, 
there  also  appeared  in  the  newspapers  a  despatch  from 
Washington  saying  that  the  fighting  ships  of  Dewey's  fleet 
had  been  ordered  to  rendezvous  at  the  Island  of  Trinidad, 
directly  off  the  coast  of  Venezuela.  The  German  Ambas- 
sador doubtless  saw  this  also.  On  the  morning  of  December 
19, 1902,  the  following,  obviously  inspired,  Associated  Press 
despatch  from  Berlin  was  published: 

"The  answer  of  Germany  to  the  arbitration  proposal  in 
behalf  of  Venezuela,  received  through  the  United  States, 
is  its  acceptance.  The  delivery  of  this  reply  to  the  United 
States  for  transmission  to  Minister  Bowen  (American 
Minister  to  Venezuela)  is  delayed  for  a  day  or  two  for  tac- 
tical reasons.  Four  days  ago  the  German  Gevornment  was 
in  favor  of  rejecting  arbitration,  and  that  is  understood 
to  have  been  the  temper  of  the  British  Foreign  Office,  also. 
While  it  is  impossible  to  trace  the  steps  which  led  to  the 
reversal  of  this  view,  it  appears  that  it  was  caused  by  the 
state  of  public  opinion  in  the  United  States,  so  far  as  Ger- 
many is  concerned,  as  it  is  understood  here." 

Three  days  later,  December  22,  1902,  the  Kaiser  formally 
requested  President  Boosevelt  to  act  as  arbiter,  but  after 


228  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

careful  deliberation  he  declined,  on  December  26,  and  the 
case  was  referred  to  The  Hague  Tribunal.  There  was  no 
publicity  given  to  the  President 's  conversation  with  Dr.  von 
Holleben.  Even  Admiral  Dewey  knew  nothing  except  that 
he  was  instructed  to  hold  his  fleet  in  readiness  for  orders. 
In  his  annual  message  to  Congress,  December  7,  1903,  the 
President  thus  stated  the  facts  in  the  case,  giving  no  hint  of 
his  personal  diplomatic  proceedings  in  bringing  about  a 
peaceful  solution: 

"It  will  be  remembered  that  during  the  second  session 
of 'the  last  Congress  Great  Britain,  Germany,  and  Italy 
formed  an  alliance  for  the  purpose  of  blockading  the  ports 
of  Venezuela  and  using  such  other  means  of  pressure  as 
would  secure  a  settlement  of  claims  due,  as  they  alleged, 
to  certain  of  their  subjects. 

"Their  employment  of  force  for  the  collection  of  these 
claims  was  terminated  by  an  agreement  brought  about 
through  the  offices  of  the  diplomatic  representatives  of  the 
United  States  at  Caracas  and  the  Government  at  Wash- 
ington, thereby  ending  a  situation  which  was  bound  to  cause 
increasing  friction  and  which  jeopardized  the  peace  of  the 
continent.  Under  this  agreement  Venezuela  agreed  to  set 
apart  a  certain  percentage  of  the  customs  receipts  of  two 
of  her  ports  to  be  applied  to  the  payment  of  whatever  obli- 
gations might  be  ascertained  by  mixed  commissions  ap- 
pointed for  that  purpose  to  be  due  from  her,  not  only  to 
the  three  powers  already  mentioned,  whose  proceedings 
against  her  had  resulted  in  a  state  of  war,  but  also  to  the 
United  States,  France,  Spain,  Belgium,  the  Netherlands, 
Sweden  and  Norway,  and  Mexico,  who  had  not  employed 
force  for  the  collection  of  the  claims  alleged  to  be  due  to 
certain  of  their  citizens. 

"A  demand  was  then  made  by  the  so-called  blockading 
powers  that  the  sums  ascertained  to  be  due  to  their  citizens 
by  such  mixed  commissions  should  be  accorded  payment  in 
full  before  anything  was  paid  upon  the  claims  of  any  of 
the  so-called  peace  powers.  Venezuela,  on  the  other  hand, 
insisted  that  all  her  creditors  should  be  paid  upon  a  basis 


/ 

THE  KAISER  AND  VENEZUELA  229 

of  exact  equality.  During  the  efforts  to  adjust  this  dispute 
it  was  suggested  by  the  powers  in  interest  that  it  should  be 
referred  to  me  for  decision,  but  I  was  clearly  of  the  opinion 
that  a  far  wiser  course  would  be  to  submit  the  question  to 
the  Permanent  Court  of  Arbitration  at  The  Hague.  It 
seemed  to  me  to  offer  an  admirable  opportunity  to  advance 
the  practise  of  the  peaceful  settlement  of  disputes  between 
nations  and  to  secure  for  The  Hague  Tribunal  a  mem- 
orable increase  of  its  practical  importance.  The  nations 
interested  in  the  controversy  were  so  numerous,  and  in 
many  instances  so  powerful,  as  to  make  it  evident  that 
beneficent  results  would  follow  from  their  appearance  at 
the  same  time  before  the  bar  of  that  august  tribunal  of 
peace. 

"Our  hopes  in  that  regard  have  been  realized.  Russia 
and  Austria  are  represented  in  the  persons  of  the  learned 
and  distinguished  jurists  who  compose  the  Tribunal,  while 
Great  Britain,  Germany,  France,  Spain,  Italy,  Belgium,  the 
Netherlands,  Sweden  and  Norway,  Mexico,  the  United 
States,  and  Venezuela  are  represented  by  their  respec- 
tive agents  and  counsel.  Such  an  imposing  concourse  of 
nations  presenting  their  arguments  and  invoking  the  deci- 
sion of  that  high  court  of  international  justice  and  inter- 
national peace  can  hardly  fail  to  secure  a  like  submission 
of  many  future  controversies.  The  nations  now  appearing 
there  will  find  it  far  easier  to  appear  there  a  second  time, 
while  no  nation  can  imagine  its  just  pride  will  be  lessened 
by  following  the  example  now  presented.  This  triumph  of 
the  principle  of  international  arbitration  is  a  subject  of 
warm  congratulation  and  offers  a  happy  augury  for  the 
peace  of  the  world." 


N 


CHAPTEE  XXI 
POPULAR  APPROVAL— VIEWS   ON  VARIOUS  SUBJECTS 

The  elections  of  November,  1902,  showed  unmistakably 
that  the  President  had  the  hearty  support  of  the  people  of 
the  country  in  his  course  during  the  first  year  of  his  ad- 
ministration. The  chief  issues  were  his  treatment  of  trusts 
and  the  settlement  of  the  coal  strike,  and  on  these  he  won  a 
signal  triumph.  Not  only  had  all  the  Eepublican  State  con- 
ventions of  the  year  strongly  approved  his  policies  but  had 
declared  in  favor  of  his  election  to  the  Presidency  in  1904. 
The  Eepublicans  elected  the  largest  majority  of  members 
of  the  House  of  Eepresentatives  that  their  party  had  se- 
cured in  a  midway  election  during  Eepublican  administra- 
tion for  thirty-four  years.  A  few  days  after  election,  on 
November  11, 1902,  the  President  went  to  New  York  to  par- 
ticipate in  the  dedication  of  a  building  which  had  been 
erected  by  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  that  city  as  its 
permanent  home.  At  a  banquet  in  the  evening  the  Pres- 
ident delivered  the  principal  address.  Fifteen  years  later, 
when  the  European  war  was  in  progress,  the  closing  pass- 
ages of  this  address  were  recalled  as  evidence  of  far-sighted 
wisdom  on  the  part  of  Eoosevelt.    It  was : 

"We  are  glad  indeed  that  we  are  on  good  terms  with  all 
the  other  peoples  of  mankind,  and  no  effort  on  our  part 
shall  be  spared  to  secure  a  continuance  of  these  relations. 
And  remember,  gentlemen,  that  we  shall  be  a  potent  factor 
for  peace  largely  in  proportion  to  the  way  in  which  we  make 
it  evident  that  our  attitude  is  due,  not  to  weakness,  not  to 
inability  to  defend  ourselves,  but  to  a  genuine  repugnance 
to  wrongdoing,  a  genuine  desire  for  self-respecting  friend- 
ship with  our  neighbors.  The  voice  of  the  weakling  or  the 
craven  counts  for  nothing  when  he  clamors  for  peace ;  but 

230 


VIEWS  ON  VARIOUS  SUBJECTS  231 

the  voice  of  the  just  man  armed  is  potent.  We  need  to 
keep  in  a  condition  of  preparedness,  especially  as  regards 
our  navy,  not  because  we  want  war,  but  because  we  desire 
to  stand  with  those  whose  plea  for  peace  is  listened  to  with 
respectful  attention. ' ' 

This  was  not  the  first  utterance  of  the  kind  that  Roose- 
velt had  made,  but  was  in  fact  a  repetition  of  what  he  had 
said  twenty  years  earlier  in  the  preface  to  his  i '  History  of 
the  War  of  1812/ '  which  he  wrote  in  1882,  quoted  in  Chap- 
ter VI,  and  in  his  address  before  the  Naval  War  College  in 
1897,  quoted  in  Chapter  IX. 

In  his  Chamber  of  Commerce  speech  the  President  gave 
an  outline  of  his  ideas  on  the  subject  of  social  and  indus- 
trial reform — a  question  that  was  steadijy  growing  to 
larger  importance  in  his  mind : 

"No  patent  remedy  can  be  devised  for  the  solution  of 
these  grave  problems  in  the  industrial  world ;  but  we  may 
rest  assured  that  they  can  be  solved  at  all  only  if  we  bring 
to  the  solution  certain  old-time  virtues,  and  if  we  strive  to 
keep  out  of  the  solution  some  of  the  most  familiar  and  most 
undesirable  of  the  traits  to  which  mankind  has  owed  un- 
told degradation  and  suffering  throughout  the  ages.  Arro- 
gance, suspicion,  brutal  envy  of  the  well-to-do,  brutalindif- 
ference  toward  those  who  are  not  well-to-do,  the  hard  re- 
fusal to  consider  the  rights  of  others,  the  foolish  refusal 
to  consider  the  limits  of  beneficent  action,  the  base  appeal 
to  the  spirit  of  selfish  greed,  whether  it  take  the  form  of 
plunder  of  the  fortunate  or  of  oppression  of  the  unfortu- 
nate— from  these  anli  from  all  kindred  vices  this  Nation 
must  be  kept  free  if  it  is  to  remain  in  its  present  position 
in  the  forefront  of  the  peoples  of  mankind.  On  the  other 
hand,  good  will  come,  even  out  of  the  present  evils,  if  we 
face  them  armed  with  the  old  homely  virtues ;  if  we  show 
that  we  are  fearless  of  soul,  cool  of  head,  and  kindly  of 
heart;  if,  without  betraying  the  weakness  that  cringes  be- 
fore wrongdoing,  we  yet  show  by  deeds  and  words  our 


I 


232  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

knowledge  that  in  such  a  government  as  ours  each  of  us 
must  be  in  very  truth  his  brother 's  keeper. '  ' 

He  went  to  Tennessee  in  November,  speaking  at  Mem- 
phis on  the  19th  of  that  month,  when  he  dwelt  upon  the 
Government's  work  in  the  Philippines,  saying: 

"  There  is  no  question  as  to  our  not  having  gone  far 
enough  and  fast  enough  in  granting  self-government  to  the 
Filipinos ;  the  only  possible  danger  has  been  lest  we  should 
go  faster  and  further  than  was  in  the  interest  of  the  Fili- 
pinos themselves.  Each  Filipino  at  the  present  day  is  guar- 
anteed his  life,  his  liberty  and  the  chance  to  pursue  hap- 
piness as  he  wishes,  so  long  as  he  does  not  harm  his  fellows, 
in  a  way  which  the  Islands  have  never  known  before  during 
all  their  recorded  history.' ' 

Speaking  at  a  banquet  of  the  Union  League  Club  in  Phil- 
adelphia on  November  22,  1902,  he  paid  high  tribute  to  the 
ability  and  services  of  Attorney  General  Knox,  adding: 

"The  question  of  the  so-called  trusts  is  but  one  of  the 
questions  we  must  meet  in  connection  with  our  industrial 
system.  There  are  many  of  them  and  they  are  serious; 
but  they  can  and  will  be  met.  Time  may  be  needed  for 
making  the  solution  perfect ;  but  it  is  idle  to  tell  this  people 
that  we  have  not  the  power  to  solve  such  a  problem  as  that 
of  exercising  adequate  supervision  over  the  great  indus- 
trial combinations  of  to-day.  We  have  the  power  and  we 
shall  find  out  the  way.  We  shall  not  act  hastily  or  reck- 
lessly, and  a  right  solution  shall  be  found,  and  found  it 
will  be.' ' 

In  his  annual  message  to  Congress,  December  2,  1902, 
the  President  said  that  the  views  which  he  had  expressed 
in  his  message  of  1901,  in  regard  to  the  desirability  of 
national  control  and  regulation  of  trusts  and  corporations, 
had,  in  his  opinion,  been  emphasized  by  experience,  and  he 
defined  his  general  attitude  on  the  subject  as  follows : 

"Our  aim  is  not  to  do  away  with  corporations;  on  the 


VIEWS  ON  VARIOUS  SUBJECTS  233 

contrary,  these  big  aggregations  are  an  inevitable  develop- 
ment of  modern  industrialism,  and  the  effort  to  destroy 
them  would  be  futile  unless  accomplished  in  ways  that 
would  work  the  utmost  mischief  to  the  entire  body  politic. 
We  can  do  nothing  of  good  in  the  way  of  regulating  and 
supervising  these  corporations  until  we  fix  clearly  in  our 
minds  that  we  are  not  attacking  the  corporations,  but  en- 
deavoring to  do  away  with  any  evil  in  them.  We  are  not 
hostile  to  them;  we  are  merely  determined  that  they  shall 
be  so  handled  as  to  subserve  the  public  good.  We  draw  the 
line  against  misconduct,  not  against  wealth.  Publicity  can 
do  no  harm  to  the  honest  corporation ;  and  we  need  not  be 
over-tender  about  sparing  the  dishonest  corporation." 

To  the  Rev.  Dr.  W.  S.  Rainsford,  of  New  York,  who  wrote 
him  a  letter  criticizing  the  trust  portions  of  his  message 
as  lacking  in  specific  remedies,  he  replied,  December  27, 
1902: 

"I  thank  you  for  your  letter.  You  say  it  is  difficult  for 
the  politicians  in  Washington  to  understand  what  is  needed 
and  not  to  be  timid.  I  agree  with  you.  But  one  of  my 
main  difficulties  arises  from  the  fact  that  thoroughly  good 
outsiders  do  not  understand  what  is  possible  to  do  or  indeed 
what  is  done.  I  am  glad  you  wrote  frankly  about  my  mes- 
sage. I  know  you  expect  me  to  write  with  equal  frankness 
in  return.  Your  letter  was  a  genuine  disappointment  to 
me,  because  it  showed  you  had  misunderstood  what  most 
emphatically  no  man  has  a  right  to  misunderstand.  My 
message  was  absolutely  clear.  I  spoke  of  the  need  of 
publicity.  But  are  you  aware  that  to  make  publicity  an 
issue  is  mere  nonsense  unless  I  frame  legislation  which  will 
give  us  a  chance  to  get  it?  Are  you  aware  also  of  the  ex- 
treme unwisdom  of  my  irritating  Congress  by  fixing  the 
details  of  a  bill,  concerning  which  they  are  very  sensitive, 
instead  of  laying  down  a  general  policy?  I  said  in  my  mes- 
sage just  what  I  had  said  in  my  speeches,  only  I  used  the 
phraseology  appropriate  to  the  occasion.  I  went  over 
every  word  with  Attorney  General  Knox  and  went  just  as 


234  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

far  as  I  thought  we  could  with  safety  go.  He  and  I  are 
now  in  close  consultation  with  the  Congressional  commit- 
tees having  the  legislation  in  charge. 

' ' Don't  you  think  that  you  will  get  a  better  idea  of  what 
I  am  after  if  you  remember  that  I  am  seeking  to  secure 
action  by  Congress  rather  than  to  establish  a  reputation 
as  a  stump  exhorter?" 

The  President's  sense  of  humor,  for  which  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  give  devout  thanks  as  a  genuine  "very  present 
help  in  time  of  trouble,"  is  revealed  constantly  in  his  let- 
ters. I  append  two  samples.  The  first  was  to  Secretary 
Hay  on  May  19,  1902: 

Dear  John: 

The  enclosed  papers  of  A B in  point  of  fervor 

and  number  would  quite  justify  his  appointment  as  Secre- 
tary of  State;  but  I  understand  he  only  wants  the  consul- 
ship at  Fort  Erie.  Senator  Piatt  and  Congressman  Alex- 
ander have  nearly  burst  into  tears  at  the  thought  of  its 
going  elsewhere — Congressman  Alexander  is  listening  to 
me  as  I  pen  this.  If  Hitt's  man  can  be  put  elsewhere,  can 
we  not  continue  Erie  as  a  feudal  appanage  of  Buffalo ! 

Faithfully  yours, 

T.  K. 

The  second  was  to  Secretary  Boot  on  February  21,  1903, 
enclosing  a  letter  of  complaint : 

To  the  Secretary  of  War: 

This  is  austerely  called  to  your  attention  by  the  Presi- 
dent, who  would  like  a  full  and  detailed  explanation,  if  pos- 
sible with  interjectional  musical  accompaniment,  about  the 
iniquity  of  making  a  promotion  for  the  senior  Senator  from 
Maine  and  refusing  to  make  one  for  the  junior  Senator. 
Your  special  attention  is  directed  to  the  pathos  of  the  con- 
cluding sentence  of  the  junior  Senator's  letter.  An  early 
and  inaccurate  report  is  requested. 

T.  B. 


VIEWS  ON  VARIOUS  SUBJECTS  235 

A  correspondence  which  took  place  early  in  1903  between 
the  President  and  Senator  Piatt,  of  New  York,  is  of  interest 
as  defining  the  attitude  which  the  President  habitually  took 
with  all  the  Senators  of  his  party  in  the  matter  of  appoint- 
ments. He  consulted  them,  and  when  they  proposed  to  him 
men  who  met  his  test  of  character  and  fitness,  he  appointed 
them  gladly,  but  as  he  said,  in  a  letter  already  quoted  in 
these  pages:  "They  may  ordinarily  name  the  men  but  I 
shall  name  the  standard  and  the  men  have  got  to  come  up 
to  it."  He  habitually  exercised  great  care  in  the  selec- 
tion of  nominees  for  the  bench,  making  inquiries  in  all 
directions  from  which  trustworthy  information  could  be 
-  derived,  and  reaching  a  decision  only  when  he  thought  the 
best  man  had  been  found.  He  pursued  this  course  in  regard 
to  a  vacancy  in  the  United  States  District  Court  in  New 
York  in  1903.  When  he  had  decided  upon  the  man  he  in- 
formed Senator  Piatt  of  his  selection.  The  Senator,  who 
was  then  broken  in  health  and  broken  also  in  political 
power,  and  who  had  presented  a  candidate  of  his  own  choice 
for  the  place,  wrote  a  querulous,  even  peevish  letter  to 
the  President,  to  which  the  latter  replied  at  length  on 
February  22,  1903,  saying  among  other  things : 

"You  say  that  you  ' cannot  with  any  degree  of  equanimity 
consent  to  the  appointment  of  a  man  whose  chief  claim  to 
recognition  is  his  social  standing  and  whose  unfitness  for 
appointment  is  known  to  nearly  every  member  of  the  bar 
in  New  York — i.  e.y  to  every  member  of  the  bar  who  is  active 
and  potential  in  the  practise  of  the  law. '  I  do  not  see  how 
you  can  feel  thus  in  view  of  the  endorsements  I  have  re- 
ceived. (The  names  of  a  large  number  of  eminent  lawyers 
in  New  York  are  then  given.) 

"You  say  that  'if  Mr.  H.'s  appointment  follows  this  pro- 
test, I  shall  view  it  with  absolute  disgust.  I  shall,  more- 
over, experience  a  diminution  of  that  interest  in  public 
affairs  that  has  been  for  so  many  years  a  vital  element  of 
my  life.  * 

"This,  my  dear  Senator,  seems  hardly  worthy  of  you. 
I  cannot  believe  that  you  seriously  mean  that  if  I  should, 


236  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

after  careful  and  conscientious  thought,  conclude  to  nomi- 
nate a  man  recommended  as  Mr.  H.  is  recommended,  and 
standing  as  high  as  I  know  him  to  stand,  you  would  feel 
like  losing  interest  in  public  affairs.  My  life  has  been  much 
shorter  than  yours,  yet  I  have  seen  a  good  many  appoint- 
ments made  to  Federal  position,  during  the  last  twenty 
years,  of  which  I  by  no  means  approve.  But  it  never  oc- 
curred to  me,  on  account  of  any  or  all  of  those  appoint- 
ments, to  refuse  longer  to  take  an  interest  in  public  affairs. 
It  is,  I  trust,  needless  to  say  that  I  fully  appreciate  the 
right  and  duty  of  the  Senate  to  reject  or  to  confirm  any 
appointment  according  to  what  its  members  conscientiously 
deem  their  duty  to  be;  just  as  it  is  my  business  to  make 
an  appointment  which  I  conscientiously  think  is  a  good  one. 

"Finally,  my  dear  Senator,  you  say:  'If  you  cherish  the 
belief  that  Mr.  H.  will  be  able  to  accomplish  the  political 
results  that  you  have  in  mind,  I  simply  wish  to  express  the 
opinion  that  he  cannot,  and,  moreover,  will  not,  meet  your 
expectations. ' 

"I  am  wholly  at  a  loss  to  know  what  you  mean  by  this 
sentence.  The  political  results  I  shall  have  in  mind  if  I 
appoint  Mr.  H.  are  those  that  I  hope  will  follow  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  first  class  man  whom  the  community  in 
general  and  the  bar  in  particular  will  accept  as  a  first  class 
man  in  point  of  character  and  ability,  and  whose  appoint- 
ment they  will  feel  reflects  credit  upon  the  bench.  I  do  not 
see  how  bad  political  results  can  follow  such  action,  and  I 
should  hope  that  on  the  whole  the  political  results  will  be 
good.  But  I  must  frankly  say  that  I  feel,  when  the  matter 
is  one  of  the  appointment  of  a  judge,  that  the  wisest  and 
best  politics  is  to  appoint  a  thoroughly  high  grade  man — if 
possible  the  best  man  obtainable.  It  is  a  matter  of  very 
keen  regret  to  me  that  we  seem  unable  to  agree  in  this 
matter." 

Three  days  later,  February  28,  1903,  he  wrote  again  to 
the  Senator,  giving  notice  of  his  final  decision : 

"I  have  been  going  over  and  over  that  judgeship  situa- 


VIEWS  ON  VARIOUS  SUBJECTS  237 

tion.  I  am  convinced  that  the  bar  and  the  people  generally 
who  are  best  competent  to  judge  feel  that  H.  is  by  all 
means  the  better  man,  and  I  do  not  see  how  I  can  avoid 
sending  in  his  name.  Many  of  your  strongest  friends  wish 
him.  It  is  a  matter  of  the  greatest  regret  to  me  that  our 
judgments  on  this  point  do  not  seem  to  agree.  I  would  not 
for  one  moment  act  against  your  wishes  if  it  was  a  matter 
of  personal  preference,  but  here  my  conception  of  duty 
seems  to  me  to  require  that  I  should  nominate  him." 

Writing  at  this  period  to  William  H.  Taft,  then  Civil 
Governor  of  the  Philippines,  he  gave,  under  date  of  March 
13,  1903,  this  judicial  estimate  of  the  character  and  ser- 
vices of  the  Republican  leaders  in  both  houses  of  Congress : 

"My  experience  for  the  last  year  and  a  half,  including 
the  two  sessions  of  the  last  Congress  and  the  special  session 
of  the  Senate  which  has  just  closed,  has  made  me  feel  re- 
spect and  regard  for  Aldrich  as  one  of  that  group  of  Sen- 
ators, including  Allison,  Hanna,  Spooner,  Piatt,  of  Connec- 
ticut, Lodge  and  one  or  two  others,  who,  together  with 
men  like  the  next  Speaker  of  the  House,  Joe  Cannon,  are 
the  most  powerful  factors  in  Congress.  With  every  one 
of  these  men  I  at  times  differ  radically  on  important  ques- 
tions ;  but  they  are  the  leaders,  and  their  great  intelligence 
and  power  and  their  desire  in  the  last  resort  to  do  what  is 
best  for  the  government,  make  them  not  only  essential  to 
work  with,  but  desirable  to  work  with.  Several  of  the  lead- 
ers have  special  friends  whom  they  desire  to  favor,  or  spe- 
cial interests  with  which  they  are  connected  and  which  they 
hope  to  serve.  But,  taken  as  a  body,  they  are  broadminded 
and  patriotic,  as  well  as  sagacious,  skilful  and  resolute. 
Each  of  them  is  set  in  his  ways  on  certain  points.  Thus, 
with  both  Hanna  and  Aldrich  I  had  to  have  a  regular 
stand-up  fight  before  I  could  get  them  to  accept  any  trust 
legislation;  but  when  I  once  got  them  to  say  they  would 
give  in,  they  kept  their  promise  in  good  faith,  and  it  was 
far  more  satisfactory  to  work  with  them  than  to  try  to 
work  with  the  alleged  radical  reformers.    Aldrich,  for  in- 


238  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

stance,  has  shied  off  from  a  number  of  propositions  in 
which  I  was  interested,  but  if  I  thought  the  matter  vital 
and  brought  it  before  him  fair  and  square,  I  have  always 
found  him  a  reasonable  nian,  open  to  conviction  and  a  tower 
of  strength  when  thus  convinced.' ' 

A  letter  which  the  President  wrote  to  Secretary  Hay,  on 
March  13, 1903,  reveals  his  consistent  devotion  to  the  Mon- 
roe doctrine  and  especially  his  determination  to  keep  the 
German  Government  fully  informed  as  to  his  position  in 
regard  to  it : 

"  Speck  (von  Sternburg,  German  Ambassador)  was  in 
to-day,  evidently  inspired  from  Berlin  to  propose  for  our 
consideration  in  the  future  the  advisability  of  having  the 
great  Powers  collectively  stand  back  of  some  syndicate 
which  should  take  possession  of  the  finances  of  Venezuela. 
His  statement  was  that  he  believed  such  action  would  put 
a  stop  to  the  motive  for  revolution  in  Venezuela,  would 
make  the  country  peaceful  and  therefore  more  or  less  pros- 
perous, and  would  do  away  with  the  chance  for  a  repetition 
of  punitive  expeditions  by  European  powers  to  collect 
debts.  He  said  he  hoped  America  would  take  the  initiative 
in  such  a  movement,  so  that  it  could  be  begun  with  her  in 
the  lead.  I  told  him  I  would  not  answer  offhand  but  that 
at  first  blush  my  judgment  was  very  strongly  that  our 
people  would  view  with  the  utmost  displeasure  any  such 
proposal,  because  it  seemed  to  me  that  it  would  not  only 
tend  to  produce  complication  among  the  guaranteeing 
powers  but  would  pave  the  way  for  reducing  Venezuela  to 
a  condition  like  that  of  Egypt,  and  that  the  American  people 
interpreted  the  Monroe  Doctrine  as  meaning  of  course  that 
no  European  power  should  gain  control  of  any  American 
republics." 

,»» 
At  the;  end  of  March,  1903,  the  President  left  Washing- 
ton for  a  tour  in  the  Western  States,  and  on  the  eve  of  de- 
parture he  sent  these  letters  of  advice  and  caution  to  two 
admirals  of  the  navy : 


VIEWS  ON  VARIOUS  SUBJECTS  239 

March  28,  1903. 
To  Admiral  Henry  C.  Taylor: 

i '  I  am  going  away  and  I  want  you  and  everybody  around 
the  Department  to  help  me  in  seeing  that  no  chance  is  given 
ignorant,  foolish  or  reckless  newspaper  men  to  make  state- 
ments which  tend  to  embroil  us  with  foreign  nations.  The  / 
last  thing  I  want  to  see  done  is  an  impression  conveyed  that 
we  are  boasting,  or  saying  anything  that  will  hurt  the  feel- 
ings of  powers  with  which  we  are  at  peace,  and  with  which 
I  hope  we  will  continue  on  terms  of  friendship.  I  want  to 
see  every  step  possible  taken  to  make  us  the  most  formi- 
dable of  foes  in  the  event  of  war,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
make  it  equally  evident  that  no  one  need  fear  a  war  with 
us  unless  from  his  own  fault." 

March  30,  1903. 
To  Admiral  George  Dewey: 

'  *  Good-by  and  good  luck  to  you  while  I  am  gone !  Now, 
my  dear  Admiral,  do  let  me  beg  of  you  to  remember  how 
great  your  reputation  is — how  widely  whatever  you  say 
goes  over  the  whole  world.  I  know  that  you  did  not  expect 
the  interview  you  had  to  be  printed,  but  do  let  me  entreat 
you  to  say  nothing  which  can  be  taken  hold  of  by  those 
anxious  to  foment  trouble  between  ourselves  and  any 
foreign  power  or  who  delight  in  giving  the  impression  that 
as  a  nation  we  are  walking  about  with  a  chip  on  our 
shoulder.  We  are  too  big  a  people  to  be  able  to  be  careless 
in  what  we  say."  - 

Speaking  to  a  great  audience  in  Chicago  on  April  2, 1903, 
the  President  said: 

1 i  I  believe  in  the  Monroe  Doctrine  with  all  my  heart  and 
soul;  I  am  convinced  that  the  immense  majority  of  our  fel- 
low-countrymen so  believe  in  it ;  but  I  would  infinitely  prefer 
to  see  us  abandon  it  than  to  see  us  put  it  forward  and  bluster 
about  it,  and  yet  fail  to  build  up  the  efficient  fighting 
strength  which  in  the  last  resort  can  alone  make  it  re- 
spected by  any  strong  foreign  power  whose  interest  it  may 
ever  happen  to  be  to  violate  it. 


/ 


240  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

i i  There  is  a  homely  old  adage  which  runs :  *  Speak  softly 
and  carry  a  big  stick;  yon  will  go  far.'  If  the  American 
nation  will  speak  softly  and  yet  build  and  keep  at  a  pitch 
of  the  highest  training  a  thoroughly  efficient  navy  the  Mon- 
roe Doctrine  will  go  far." 

The  first  mention  of  the  "big  stick"  adage  that  I  find  in 
his  correspondence  is  in  a  letter' that  he  wrote  while  he 
was  Governor  of  New  York.  During  his  Presidency  the 
cartoonists  of  the  daily  press  seized  upon  a  part  of  it  only 
and  pictured  him  invariably  with  an  immense  club  in  his 
hand,  oftentimes  with  spikes  protruding  from  the  sides 
of  it.  He  was  thus  represented  as  the  champion  of  the 
"Big  Stick"  policy  in  governmental  administration,  and  in 
that  forceful  aspect  he  was  pTaced~^oTltrhuouslyl)ef ore  the 
world. 

During  his  Presidency  I  made  collections  of  the  press  car- 
toons about  him  and  took  them  to  the  White  House  with  me 
on  my  occasional  visits.  Usually  they  were  inspected  by 
him  in  the  presence  of  such  members  of  the  family  as  hap- 
pened to  be  there  and  they  were  the  cause  of  much  merri- 
ment, he  himself  enjoying  them  as  much  as  any  one  else. 
On  one  occasion,  after  a  particularly  large  batch  had  been 
examined,  he  said, — I  give  his  words  from  memory :  "  It  is 
very  curious.  Ever  since  I  have  been  in  the  Presidency 
I  have  been  pictured  constantly  as  a  huge  creature  with 
enormous  clenched  teeth,  a  big  spiked  club,  and  a  belt  full 
of  pistols — a  blustering,  roaring  swashbuckler  type  of  ruf- 
fian, and  yet  all  the  time  I  have  been  growing  in  popularity. 
I  don't  understand  it  at  all." 

The  explanation  seemed  to  me  to  be  simple  enough.  All 
the  cartoonists  at  heart  liked  him,  and  there  was  seldom  or 
never  anything  bitter  or  really  unfriendly  in  their  por- 
trayals of  him;  they  were  uniformly  good-natured.  He, 
as  I  have  said,  genuinely  enjoyed  their  productions  and 
had  many  of  the  original  drawings  framed  and  placed  on 
the  bookcases  in  his  library,  both  in  the  White  House  and 
at  Oyster  Bay. 


VIEWS  ON  VARIOUS  SUBJECTS  241 

Writing  from  the  Far  West  to  Senator  Lodge,  he  gave  an 
interesting  glimpse  of  the  movement  which  was  on  foot  at 
the  time  to  make  Grover  Cleveland  the  Democratic  Presi- 
dential candidate  for  a  third  term : 

May  4, 1903. — "I  enjoyed  meeting  Cleveland  for  I  like  the 
old  fellow.  It  is  evident  he  has  the  Presidential  bee  in  his 
bonnet,  and  it  is  equally  evident  that  a  large  number  of 
people  are  desirous  of  running  him  again.  Bryan  would 
bolt  him,  but  in  spite  of  this  I  think  he  would  be  a  very 
formidable  candidate.  In  North  Dakota,  for  instance,  they 
told  me  they  thought  he  would  run  better  than  any  other 
Democrat.    So  they  did  in  Missouri  and  Iowa. 

i '  I  have  been  well  received,  indeed,  I  might  say,  enthusi- 
astically received.  But,  frankly,  I  have  been  too  long  in 
public  life  to  be  taken  in  by  a  good  reception,  and  I  have 
not  the  slightest  idea  how  things  really  stand.' ' 

May  23, 1903.— "  Most  of  the  people  out  here  believe  that 
Cleveland  will  be  nominated  on  the  Democratic  ticket,  and 
that  he  will  be  a  very  formidable  man  to  beat — probably 
the  most  formidable  Democrat.  If  nominated  he  will  drive 
certain  Democrats  away.  For  instance,  the  Governor  of 
Nevada  and  the  Mayor  of  Carson,  both  Democrats,  told  me 
that  they  should  vote  for  me  if  Cleveland  were  nominated ; 
but  I  find  that  Pierpont  Morgan  and  other  Wall  Street 
men  have  been  announcing  openly  within  the  past  fortnight 
that  they  should  support  Mr.  Cleveland  against  me  with  all 
their  power.  They  would  draw  a  great  many  votes  both 
from  the  honest  rich  and  the  fool  respectable  classes.' ' 

The  President  had  appointed  as  District  Attorney  for 
the  State  of  Delaware,  Mr.  William  M.  Byrne,  concerning 
whom  there  had  been  a  heated  partisan  controversy  be- 
cause of  his  relations  with  political  factional  quarrels  in 
the  State.  In  a  letter  to  him,  on  March  23,  1903,  the  Presi- 
dent said: 

"I  have  named  you  as  District  Attorney.  Now  there  is 
one  thing,  and  one  thing  only,  that  I  demand.  That  is,  that 
you  keep  clear  of  factional  politics,  and  indeed  do  just  as 


242  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

little  political  work  as  possible,  and  confine  your  attention 
to  making  the  best  record  as  district  attorney  that  has  been 
made  by  any  district  attorney  of  Delaware.  There  must 
not  be  a  single  legitimate  or  well-founded  complaint  against 
you.  You  will  of  course  show  neither  fear  nor  favor  in 
anything  you  do.  Any  offender  of  any  kind  whose  case 
may  be  brought  to  your  attention,  or  whom  you  can  reach, 
is  to  be  prosecuted  with  absolute  indifference  as  to  whether 
he  is  Eepublican  or  Democrat,  Addicks  man  or  anti-Addicks 
man.  I  have  liked  you  and  I  think  well  of  you,  but  under 
the  circumstances  of  your  appointment  and  the  way  in 
which  it  was  fought,  I  have  a  right  to  demand  that  you 
walk  even  more  guardedly  than  the  ordinary  public  official 
walks,  and  that  you  show  yourself  a  model  officer  in  point 
of  fearlessness  and  integrity,  industry  and  ability. 

"The  question  of  your  confirmation  will  come  up  when 
the  Senate  reconvenes.  You  can  help  yourself  in  it  more 
than  any  other  man  can  possibly  help  you;  and  you  can 
help  yourself  only  by  making  a  record  which  will  be  a  just 
source  of  pride  to  you  and  to  me. ' ' 

In  accordance  with  the  recommendation  of  the  President 
in  his  first  message  to  Congress,  repeated  in  subsequent 
messages,  Congress  passed  in  February,  1903,  an  act  cre- 
ating a  Department  of  Commerce  and  Labor,  including  a 
Bureau  of  Corporations,  and  the  act  was  approved  on 
February  19.  The  first  head  of  it,  George  B.  Cortelyou, 
who  had  been  Secretary  to  the  President,  was  appointed 
two  days  later. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

FOR  PRESIDENT  IN  1904r-FUTILE  OPPOSITION—HIS 
OWN  ATTITUDE 

The  Republican  State  conventions  of  1902  had  quite  gen- 
erally commended  Roosevelt  as  the  party's  candidate  for 
the  Presidency  in  1904,  and  it  became  evident  early  in  1903 
that  he  was  so  clearly  the  first  choice  of  his  party  that 
his  nomination  was  a  foregone  conclusion.  Only  one  very 
short-lived  effort  was  made  to  prevent  it. 

It  was  while  the  President  was  in  the  Far  West  in  May, 
1903,  that  the  first  surface  indication  of  this  effort,  whicn 
originated  in  Wall  Street,  made  its  appearance.  All  the 
Republican  State  conventions  that  had  been  held  had 
adopted  resolutions  declaring  in  favor  of  his  nomination 
in  1904.  The  Ohio  convention  was  to  meet  on  June  3,  1903. 
A  week  or  more  before  that  date  two  prominent  Ohio  Re- 
publican leaders,  Senator  Foraker  and  Congressman  Gros- 
venor,  had  said  in  published  interviews  that  the  convention 
would  endorse  Roosevelt.  Senator  Hanna,  whose  relations 
with  the  New  York  opponents  of  Roosevelt  were  known  to 
be  intimate,  and  who  had  been  spoken  of  in  the  press  as 
their  candidate  for  the  Presidential  nomination,  declared  in 
an  interview  that  he  was  opposed  to  the  endorsement  of 
Roosevelt  because  the  convention  of  1903  had  no  right  to 
assume  the  responsibilities  of  the  convention  of  1904,  whose 
delegates  would  be  chosen  for  the  express  purpose  of  choos- 
ing delegates  to  the  National  Convention,  and  that  there 
was  no  precedent  for  such  action  except  in  the  case  of  a 
" favorite  son."  As  soon  as  the  interview  was  published 
he  sent  this  telegram  to  President  Roosevelt: 

243 


244  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Cleveland,  Ohio,  May  23,  1903. 
The  President, 

Seattle,  Wash. 
The  issue  which  has  been  forced  upon  me  in  the  matter 
of  our  State  Convention  this  year  endorsing  you  for  the 
Eepublican  nomination  next  year  has  come  in  a  way  which 
makes  it  necessary  for  me  to  oppose  such  a  resolution. 
When  you  know  all  the  facts  I  am  sure  you  will  approve 
my  course. 

M.  A.  Hanna. 

To  this  telegram  the  President  replied  as  follows: 

Seattle,  Wash.,  May  25,  1903 
Eon.  M.  A.  Hanna, 

Cleveland,  Ohio. 
Your  telegram  received.  I  have  not  asked  any  man  for 
his  support.  I  have  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  rais- 
ing this  issue.  Inasmuch  as  it  has  been  raised  of  course 
those  who  favor  my  administration  and  my  nomination  will 
favor  endorsing  both  and  those  who  do  not  will  oppose. 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 

Senator  Hanna  had  no  difficulty  in  comprehending  what 
this  message  meant,  and  he  responded  immediately  as  fol- 
lows: 

Cleveland,  Ohio,  May  26,  1903. 
The  President: 

Your  telegram  of  the  25th.  In  view  of  the  sentiment  ex- 
pressed I  shall  not  oppose  the  endorsement  of  your  admin- 
istration and  candidacy  by  our  State  Convention.  I  have 
given  the  substance  of  this  to  the  Associated  Press. 

M.  A.  Hanna. 

Writing  confidentially  to  Senator  Lodge,  on  May  27, 1903, 
the  President  thus  explains  his  reasons  for  the  action  he 
took: 

'  *  After  the  receipt  of  the  first  telegram  I  thought  over  the 


FOR  PRESIDENT  IN  1904— FUTILE  OPPOSITION     245 

matter  a, full  twenty-four  hours,  consulting  with  Mellen, 
Byrnes  and  Moody  and  decided  that  the  time  had  come  to 
stop  shilly-shallying,  and  let  Hanna  know  definitely  that  I 
did  not  intend  to  assume  the  position,  at  least  passively, 
of  a  suppliant  to  whom  he  might  give  the  nomination  as  a 
boon.  I  accordingly  sent  him  my  answer,  and  as  you  doubt- 
less saw,  made  a  similar  statement  for  the  public  press, 
of  course  not  alluding  to  the  fact  that  Hanna  had  sent  me 
the  telegram,  my  statement  simply  going  as  one  made  nec- 
essary by  Hannahs  long  interview  in  which  he  announced 
that  he  would  oppose  my  endorsement  by#the  Ohio  Con- 
vention. I  rather  expected  Hanna  to  fight,  but  made  up 
my  mind  that  it  was  better  to  have  a  fight  in  the  open  at 
once  than  to  run  the  risk  of  being  knifed  secretly.  Mellen 
and  also  Loeb  were  confident  that  he  would  not  fight.  The 
result  proved  that  they  were  right,  as  his  last  telegram 
shows. 

"I  am  pleased  at  the  outcome  as  it  simplifies  things  all 
around,  for  in  my  judgment  Hanna  was  my  only  formidable 
opponent  so  far  as  the  nomination  is  concerned.' ' 

The  accuracy  of  the  President's  prediction  was  verified 
by  subsequent  events.  All  opposition  to  his  nomination  dis- 
appeared the  moment  that  his  reply  to  Hanna  was  known. 
As  casting  full  light  upon  the  incident,  the  following  cor- 
respondence between  the  President  and  Senator  Hanna  is 
appended : 

SENATOR   HANNA 's   LETTER 

Cleveland,  Ohio,  May  25,  1903. 
"I  wired  you  Saturday  about  the  question  which  is  com- 
ing up  before  our  State  Convention  in  regard  to  a  resolu- 
tion endorsing  your  candidacy.  I  was  not  consulted  and 
heard  nothing  about  it  until  Grosvenor's  and  Foraker's 
interviews  came  out  in  the  papers.  When  asked  about  it  I 
at  once  expressed  my  disapproval  for  the  following  rea- 
sons— that  this  State  Convention  had  no  right  to  assume 
the  responsibilities  of  the  Convention  of  1904,  whose  dele- 


246  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT«»LP  HIS  TIME 


gates  would  be  chosen  for  the  express  purpoS^^choosing 
delegates  to  the  National  Convention;  that  it  is  without 
precedent  in  our  State  (except  in  regard  to  a  favorite 
son) ;  that  it  places  me  in  an  embarrassing  position  as 
Chairman  of  the  National  Committee;  and  last  but  not 
least  it  is  meant  to  be  unfriendly  toward  me.  You  know 
the  past  history  of  several  things  of  kindred  nature  so  I 
will  not  dwell  on  the  motives  which  are  the  real  incentive 
to  this  action,  only  that  I  shall  oppose  the  resolution  and 
you  may  feel  sure  without  anything  but  the  best  of  motives 
and  in  what  I  consider  your  best  interests.  I  am  hearing 
from  all  over  the  country  and  where  the  source  is  most 
worthy  of  consideration.  There  is  but  one  opinion  that  this 
is  an  attempt  to  put  me  in  a  false  position  and  to  your 
injury. 

"I  almost  committed  an  ' impulsive'  act  myself  by  stating 
in  my  interview  to  the  Associated  Press  (copy  enclosed) 
that  I  felt  sure  you  would  not  approve — (under  the  circum- 
stances). It  is  not  necessary  to  hesitate  between  good  and 
bad  judgment  when  the  motives  are  known.  I  spent  a  few 
days  in  New  York  last  week  and  remembered  your  sugges- 
tion to  me.  There  is  need  of  missionary  work  there.  But 
with  this  embarrassment  thrust  upon  me  will  make  me  a 
useless  article.  Our  convention  comes  the  2nd  and  3rd  of 
June,  and  promises  to  be  a  hot  time." 

THE   PRESIDENT'S  REPLY 

Ogden,  Utah,  May  29, 1903. 
"I  thank  ydu  for  your  letter,  which  gave  me  the  first 
gleam  of  light  on  the  situation.  I  do  not  think  you  appre- 
ciated the  exact  effect  that  your  interview  and  announced 
position  had  in  the  country  at  large.  It  was  everywhere 
accepted  as  the  first  open  attack  upon  me,  and  it  gave  heart, 
curiously  enough,  not  only  to  my  opponents,  but  to  all  the 
curious  men  who  lumped  you  and  me  together  as  improp- 
erly friendly  to  organized  labor  and  to  the  workingmen 
generally.     The  mischievous  effect  was  instantly  visible. 


FOR  PRESIDENTS  1904— FUTILE  OPPOSITION     247 


The  gene4pjpbelief  was  that  this  was  not  your  move,  save 
indirectly;  that  it  was  really  an  attack  by  the  so-called  Wall 
Street  forces  on  me,  to  which  you  had  been  led  to  give  a 
reluctant  acquiescence.  I  might  not  have  said  anything 
for  publication  at  all  had  it  not  been  for  the  statement  that 
I  approved  your  course.  In  the  way  the  movement  was 
interpreted  this  looked  as  if  I  was  approving  having  my 
throat  slit.  My  view  was  that  you  of  course  had  an  abso- 
lute right  to  be  a  candidate  yourself,  but  that  if  you  were 
not  one  you  would  be  doing  me  and  the  Republican  party 
serious  harm  by  fighting  and  very  probably  beating  the 
proposition  to  endorse  me  by  the  Ohio  Convention. 

"  After  thinking  the  matter  carefully  over  I  became  sure 
that  I  had  to  take  a  definite  stand  myself.  I  hated  to  do  it 
because  you  have  shown  such  broad  generosity  and  straight- 
forwardness in  all  your  dealings  with  me  that  it  was  pe- 
culiarly painful  to  me  to  be  put,  even  temporarily,  in  a 
position  of  seeming  antagonism  to  you.  No  one  but  a  really 
big  man — a  man  above  all  petty  considerations — could  have 
treated  me  as  you  have  treated  me  during  the  year  and  a 
half  since  President  McKinley's  death.  I  have  consulted 
you  and  relied  on  your  judgment  more  than  has  been  the 
case  with  any  other  man." 

The  fact  that  he  was  on  the  verge  of  a  campaign  for  his 
own  election  to  the  Presidency,  did  not  prevent  Roosevelt 
from  taking  action  which  might  harm  him  politically  and 
possibly  cause  his  defeat  at  the  polls.  All  appeals  to  him 
to  lower  his  standard  of  appointments  in  the  interest  of  his 
own  nomination  and  election  were  rejected  with  vigor  and 
finality.  To  a  member  of  the  National  Republican  Com- 
mittee who  was  especially  interested  in  the  election  of  del* 
egates  from  the  South  to  the  National  Convention,  he  wrote 
on  March  13,  1903 : 

"The  most  damaging  thing  to  me  any  one  can  do  is  to 
give  the  impression  that  in  what  I  have  been  trying  to  do 
for  the  negro  I  have  been  actuated  by  political  motives. 
That  is  why  I  have  been  so  insistent  that  neither  you  nor 


248  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  A^D  HIS  TIME 

any  one  else  shall  take  any  step  to  secure  a  negro  or  any 
other  delegation  from  the  South.  I  do  not  want  the  nomina- 
tion unless  it  eomes  freely  from  the  people  of  the  Bepubli- 
can  States,  because  they  believe  in  me,  and  because  they 
believe  I  can  carry  their  States.  And  in  the  South  I  want 
to  make  it  as  clear  as  a  bell  that  I  have  acted  in  the  way 
I  have  on  the  negro  question  simply  because  I  hold  myself 
the  heir  of  the  policies  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  would  be 
incapable  of  abandoning  them  to  serve  political  or  per- 
sonal ends." 

To  the  Governor  of  a  leading  Northern  State  he  wrote 
on  March  23,  1903 : 

"I  do  not  quite  understand  the  serious  tone  in  which 
you  speak  of  the  possibility  of  my  appointments  returning 
to  cause  trouble  in  the  future.  Do  you  mean  as  regards 
my  nomination  as  President?  I  have  followed  your  advice 
and  given  no  thought  whatever  to  that,  agreeing  with  what 
you  said,  that  the  way  for  me  to  do  was  to  make  a  first- 
class  President  and  let  the  nomination  take  care  of  itself. ' 9 

A  notable  incident  had  arisen  in  Oregon.  There  had  been 
a  good  deal  of  fraud  and  lax  work  in  certain  land  offices 
in  that  State,  and  the  President  had  informed  the  two 
United  States  Senators  from  Oregon  that  he  would  not  re- 
appoint a  certain  land  official  but  would  appoint  in  his  place 
any  fit  man  whom  they  might  name.  The  two  Senators  de- 
clined to  select  a  successor,  believing  that  by  so  doing  the 
President  would  permit  the  incumbent  to  remain  in  office. 
On  August  25,  1903,  the  President  considerably  astonished 
the  two  Senators  by  sending  to  each  of  them  a  letter  in 
which  he  said: 

"I  cannot  permit  the  incumbent  to  retain  his  position 
because  there  is  a  deadlock  about  his  successor.  He  will 
be  removed  at  once.  In  appointing  his  successor,  and  in 
appointing  all  other  officers  to  these  places,  I  must  keep 
in  mind  that  it  is  I  who  am  primarily  responsible  for  the 
appointment,  not  the  Senators.    If  I  appoint  a  man  who  is 


FOR  PRESIDENT  IN  1904— FUTILE  OPPOSITION     249 

unfit,  then  of  course  you  must  refuse  to  confirm  him;  and 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  if  you  will  give  me  a  man  of  whom  I 
can  approve,  I  will  gladly  appoint  him.  There  is  no  one  of 
whom  I  am  personally  desirous  of  putting  in  any  of  these 
positions.  But  I  do  not  merely  desire,  but  am  firmly  de- 
termined to  have,  a  thoroughly  good  type  of  man  in  the 
position;  and  I  cannot  surrender  to  any  one  the  right  to 
decide  for  me  whether  or  not  I  believe  the  man  to  be  a 
good  one.  I  cannot  permit  any  one  to  say  to  me  that  such 
and  such  a  man  shall  be  appointed  and  no  one  else ;  nor  if  I 
believe  a  man  to  be  unfit  can  I  accept  any  one  else 's  judg- 
ment that  he  is  fit.  In  return,  I  have  of  course  no  right  to 
insist  that  the  Senate  shall  accept  my  judgment  as  to  a 
man's  fitness.  They  can  reject  any  nominee  of  mine;  and 
if  they  do  so  I  will  try  to  find  some  thoroughly  good  man 
whom  they  will  accept. ' ' 

The  President  also  informed  the  Senators  that,  in  de- 
fault of  their  naming  a  successor  he  had  chosen  a  man  whom 
he  hoped  they  would  accept.  Furthermore,  as  additional 
information  concerning  his  attitude  on  land  office  affairs, 
he  said  it  was  reported  to  him  that  two  other  positions  in 
the  service  were  in  a  disgraceful  condition,  and  added: 
"The  incumbents  must  be  removed  forthwith.  Will  you 
kindly  join  with  your  colleague  in  recommending  to  me 
at  once  first-class  men  to  put  in  their  places?  All  I  ask  is 
that  these  men  shall  be  first-class  in  every  way?" 

This  open  warfare  upon  the  two  Senators,  an  unprece- 
dented proceeding  a  few  months  in  advance  of  a  campaign, 
did  not  prevent  the  State  of  Oregon  from  giving  its  elec- 
toral vote  to  Roosevelt  in  the  election  of  the  following  year. 
Subsequently,  Roosevelt's  relentless  pursuit  of  the  land 
office  thieves  resulted  in  sending  one  of  the  Senators  to  the 
penitentiary. 

Another  incident  of  like  character  occurred  in  September, 
1903.  On  May  18  of  that  year  William  A.  Miller,  Assistant 
Foreman  of  the  Government  Printing  Office,  was  removed 
from  his  position  by  the  Public  Printer,  the  reason  given 
for  removal  being  that  Miller  had  been  expelled  from  a 


250  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

labor  union.  Miller  filed  a  complaint  with  the  Civil  Ser- 
vice Commission,  alleging  that  his  removal  was  in  violation 
of  the  Civil  Service  Law.  The  Commission  investigated  the 
case  and  decided  that  his  removal  was  a  violation  of  the 
law  and  requested  his  reassignment  to  his  position.  Pres- 
ident Roosevelt  ordered  the  Public  Printer  to  reinstate 
Miller,  saying  in  his  letter  to  him:  " There  is  no  objection 
to  the  employees  of  the  Government  Printing  Office  consti- 
tuting themselves  into  a  union  if  they  so  desire;  but  no 
rules  or  resolutions  of  that  union  can  be  permitted  to  over- 
ride the  laws  of  the  United  States  which  it  is  my  sworn 
duty  to  enforce.' ' 

The  Washington  Central  Labor  Bureau  took  up  the  case 
on  the  side  of  the  union  and,  with  the  approval  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  sent  circulars  to  more  than 
500  central  labor  unions  throughout  the  United  States, 
claiming  a  membership  of  two  and  a  half  millions  of  work- 
ingmen,  in  which  was  embodied  the  following: 

"Whereas,  The  President  of  the  United  States  has  seen 
fit  to  reinstate  W.  A.  Miller,  who  is  an  expelled  member  of  a 
trades  organization,  notwithstanding  the  overwhelming  ev- 
idence of  his  moral  turpitude,  and  has  also  committed  him- 
self to  the  policy  of  the  open  shop,  as  shown  by  his  let- 
ters, 

"Resolved,  That  the  order  of  the  President  cannot  be  re- 
garded in  any  but  an  unfriendly  light." 

The  President,  in  pursuance  of  a  request  by  Samuel  Gom- 
pers,  President  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor, 
granted  an  interview  on  September  29,  1903,  to  the  mem- 
bers of  the  executive  council  of  that  body,  during  which  the 
Miller  case  was  brought  up  for  consideration.  The  Presi- 
dent made  a  statement  in  which  he  said: 

"As  regards  the  Miller  case,  I  have  little  to  add  to  what 
I  have  already  said.  In  dealing  with  it,  I  ask  you  to  re- 
member that  I  am  dealing  purely  with  the  relation  of  the 
Government  to  its  employees.  I  must  govern  my  action 
by  the  laws  of  the  land,  which  I  am  sworn  to  administer, 


FOR  PRESIDENT  IN  1904—FUTILE  OPPOSITION     251 

and  which  differentiate  any  case  in  which  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  is  a  party  from  all  other  cases  what- 
soever. These  laws  are  enacted  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole 
people  and  cannot  and  must  not  be  construed  as  permitting 
discrimination  against  some  of  the  people.  I  am  President 
of  all  the  people  of  the  United  States,  without  regard  to 
creed,  color,  birthplace,  occupation,  or  social  conditions. 
My  aim  is  to  do  equal  and  exact  justice  as  among  them  all. 
<^In  the  employment  and  dismissal  of  men  in  the  Government 
service  I  can  no  more  recognize  the  fact  that  a  man  does  or 
does  not  belong  to  a  union  as  being  for  or  against  him  than 
I  can  recognize  the  fact  that  he  is  a  Protestant  or  a  Catho- 
lic, a  Jew  or  a  Gentile,  as  being  for  or  against  him.  This  is 
the  only  question  now  before  me  for  decision;  and  as  to 
this  my  decision  is  final.,, 

Writing  to  his  friend,  L.  Clarke  Davis,  of  the  Phila- 
delphia Public  Ledger,  on  September  21,  1903,  a  few  days 
before  the  interview  with  the  labor  union  representatives, 
he  said : 

"It  is  a  sheer  waste  of  time  for  these  people,  through 
such  resolutions  as  those  of  the  unions  you  quote,  to 
threaten  me  with  defeat  for  the  Presidency  next  year. 
Nothing  would  hire  me  even  to  accept  the  Presidency  if  I 
had  to  take  it  on  terms  which  would  mean  a  forfeiting  of 
self-respect.  Just  as  I  should  refuse  to  accept  it  at  the  cost 
of  abandoning  the  Northern  Securities  suit,  or  of  repealing 
the  trust  regulatory  legislation  of  last  year,  or  of  undoing 
what  I  did  in  the  anthracite  coal  strike,  so  I  should  refuse 
to  take  it  at  the  cost  of  undoing  what  I  did  in  this  matter 
of  Miller  and  the  Labor  Union.  The  labor  unions  and  the 
trust  magnates  may  perhaps  unite  against  me.  If  so,  I 
shall  do  my  level  best  to  make  the  fight  an  open  one  and 
beat  them — and  I  think  I  run  a  good  chance  of  winning ;  and 
if  I  fail,  I  shall  not  regret  the  policy  I  have  pursued." 

In  a  letter  to  Baron  d'Estournelles  de  Constant,  in  France, 
on  September  1, 1903,  the  President  gave  a  fuller  outline  of 
his  attitude  toward  an  election  to  the  Presidency : 


252  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

"Of  course  I  should  like  to  be  reelected  President,  and 
I  shall  be  disappointed,  although  not  very  greatly  disap- 
pointed, if  I  am  not ;  and  so  far  as  I  legitimately  can  I  pay 
heed  to  considerations  ol  political  expediency — in  fact  I 
should  be  unfit  for  my  position,  or  for  any  position  of  po- 
litical leadership,  if  I  did  not  do  so.  But  when  questions 
involve  deep  and  far-reaching  principles,  then  I  believe 
that  the  real  expediency  is  to  be  found  in  straightforward 
and  unflinching  adherence  to  principle,  and  this  without 
regard  to  what  may  be  the  temporary  effect.  When  the 
matter  is  one  of  elementary  justice  and  decency,  then  there 
can  be  no  compromise.  Murder  is  murder,  and  theft  is 
theft,  and  there  should  be  no  halfway  measure  with  crimi- 
nality. There  are  good  and  bad  men  of  all  nationalities, 
creeds  and  colors ;  and  if  this  world  of  ours  is  ever  to  be- 
come what  we  hope  some  day  it  may  become,  it  must  be  by 
the  general  recognition  that  the  man's  heart  and  soul,  the 
man's  worth  and  action,  determine  his  standing.  I  should 
be  sorry  to  lose  the  Presidency,  but  I  should  be  a  hundred- 
fold more  sorry  to  gain  it  by  failing  in  every  way  in  my 
power  to  try  to  put  a  stop  to  lynching  and  to  brutality  and 
wrong  of  any  kind ;  or  by  failing  on  the  one  hand  to  make 
the  very  wealthiest  and  most  powerful  men  in  the  country 
obey  the  law  and  handle  their  property  (so  far  as  it  is  in 
my  power  to  make  them)  in  the  public  interest;  or,  on  the 
other  hand,  to  fail  to  make  the  laboring  men  in  their  turn 
obey  the  law,  and  realize  that  envy  is  as  evil  a  thing  as  ar- 
rogance, and  that  crimes  of  violence  and  riot  shall  be  as 
sternly  punished  as  crimes  of  greed  and  cunning. ' ' 

For  several  months  an  investigation  had  been  in  progress, 
in  1903,  in  the  Post  Office  Department  in  regard  to  frauds 
of  various  kinds  which  had  been  committed  during  the 
McKinley  administration.  President  Roosevelt  ordered  a 
vigorous  and  unrelenting  inquiry,  and  appointed  special 
counsel,  in  the  person  of  two  lawyers  of  high  character  and 
standing,  to  take  charge  of  it.    Writing  from  Oyster  Bay, 


FOR  PRESIDENT  IN  1904— FUTILE  OPPOSITION     253 

on  September  4,  1903,  to  the  Postmaster  General,  Henry  C. 
Payne,  he  said: 

' '  I  would  far  rather  incur  the  hostility  of  a  Congressman 
or  a  Senator  than  do  something  we  ought  not  to  do.  The 
Post  Office  Department  is  now  under  fire  and  there  is  much 
baseless  distrust  of  it  in  the  popular  mind.  Eeally,  you 
and  I  are  not  responsible  for  the  misconduct.  It  happened 
before  either  of  us  came  into  office;  but  as  long  as  this 
feeling  exists  we  can  a  hundredfold  better  afford  to  incur 
the  hostility  of  any  politician  than  to  give  the  slightest 
ground  for  belief  that  we  are  managing  the  Department 
primarily  as  a  political  machine.  If  the  real  or  fancied  need 
of  any  politician  comes  in  conflict  with  what  you  regard  as 
the  good  of  the  service  or  as  equity  to  any  individuals, 
disregard  that  politician  utterly  and  if  he  complains  send 
him  to  me.    I  shall  take  up  any  such  case  myself.' y 

In  many  letters  written  at  this  time  he  expressed  him- 
self frankly  concerning  his  political  prospects,  sounding  in 
all  the  same  note  of  inflexible  devotion  to  his  guiding  prin- 
ciples of  official  conduct. 

To  W.  W.  Sewell,  in  Maine,  he  wrote  on  September  23, 
1903: 

"Sometimes  I  feel  a  little  melancholy  because  it  is  so 
hard  to  persuade  people  to  accept  equal  justice.  The  very 
rich  corporation  people  are  sore  and  angry  because  I  re- 
fuse to  allow  a  case  like  that  of  the  Northern  Securities 
Company  to  go  unchallenged  by  the  law;  and  in  the  same 
way  the  turbulent  and  extreme  labor  union  people  are  sore 
and  angry  because  I  insist  that  every  man,  whether  he  be- 
long to  a  labor  union  or  not,  shall  be  given  a  square  deal 
in  Government  employment.  Now,  I  believe  in  rich  people 
who  act  squarely,  and  in  labor  unions  which  are  managed 
with  wisdom  and  justice;  but  when  either  employee  or 
employer,  laboring  man  or  capitalist,  goes  wrong,  I  have  to 
cinch  him,  and  that  is  all  there  is  to  it." 

To  his  sister,  Mrs.  Douglas  Eobinson,  he  wrote  from 
Oyster  Bay  on  September  23,  1903 : 


254  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

' i  Next  Monday  I  go  back  to  Washington.  And  for  the 
thirteen  months  following  there  will  be  mighty  little  let  up 
to  the  strain.  But  I  enjoy  it  to  the  full.  What  the  outcome 
will  be,  so  far  as  I  am  personally  concerned,  I  do  not  know. 
It  looks  as  if  I  will  be  nominated.  Whether  I  shall  be  re- 
elected, I  have  not  the  slightest  idea.  I  know  there  is  bitter 
opposition  to  me  from  many  different  sources.  Whether  I 
shall  have  enough  support  to  overcome  this  opposition,  I 
cannot  tell.  I  suppose  few  Presidents  can  form  the  slightest 
idea  whether,  their  policies  have  met  with  approval  or  not — 
certainly  I  cannot.  But  as  far  as  I  can  see  those  policies 
have  been  right,  and  I  hope  that  time  will  justify  them.  If 
it  does  not,  why,  I  must  abide  the  fall  of  the  dice,  and  that 
is  all  there  is  about  it. ' ' 

One  phase  of  his  pursuit  of  persons  involved  in  the  frauds 
of  the  Post  Office  Department  is  described  in  a  letter  to  Sen- 
ator Lodge,  under  date  of  September  30,  1903 : 

"I  had  a  very  ugly  time  over  the  indictment  of  a  State 
Senator  of  New  York.  He  is  a  close  personal,  political  and 
business  friend  of  the  Republican  State  Chairman,  and  of 
the  State  Comptroller.  The  Chairman  is  a  heavy  stock- 
holder in  the  concern  on  behalf  of  which  the  crookedness 
was  done,  and  he  is  very  naturally  bitter  against  me. 
Whether  he  himself  was  cognizant  of  the  wrong-doing  or 
not,  I  cannot  say.  It  is  greatly  to  be  regretted  that  he  is 
Chairman  of  the  State  Committee.  The  Comptroller  came 
down  to  see  me  to  explain  that  if  the  Senator  were  indicted 
it  was  his  judgment  that  we  should  certainly  lose  the  State 
next  fall.  I  was  as  polite  as  possible,  answering  that  of 
course  I  was  more  'interested  in  carrying  the  State  than 
any  one  else  was,  but  that  in  the  first  place  I  should  cer- 
tainly not  let  up  on  any  grafter,  no  matter  what  the  politi- 
cal effect  might  be ;  and  that  in  the  second  place,  my  judg- 
ment was  that  whereas  we  might  lose  the  State  if  we  did 
make  it  evident  that  we  intended  to  prosecute  every  guilty 
man,  we  should  certainly  lose  it  if  we  did  not. ' ' 


FOR  PRESIDENT  IN  1904— FUTILE  OPPOSITION     255 

One  of  the  most  characteristic  of  all  the  letters  written  at 
this  time  was  the  following  to  L.  Clarke  Davis,  of  Phila- 
delphia : 

"  There  is  one  small  point  that  I  should  like  to  speak  to 
you  about.  The  other  day  in  a  very  kindly  editorial  you 
spoke  of  me  as  saying  that  I  would  do  anything  in  the 
world  not  dishonorable  or  improper  or  in  violation  of  my 
conscience  to  be  reelected  as  President.  I  forget  the  exact 
word,  but  this  was  the  sense.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  is 
calculated  to  convey  a  somewhat  wrong  impression  of  what 
I  said.  I  do  not  believe  in  playing  the  hypocrite.  Any 
strong  man  fit  to  be  President  would  desire  a  renomination 
and  reelection  after  his  first  term.  Lincoln  was  President 
in  so  great  a  crisis  that  perhaps  he  neither  could  nor  did 
feel  any  personal  interest  in  his  own  reelection.  I  trust 
and  believe  that  if  the  crisis  were  a  serious  one  I  should  be 
incapable  of  considering  my  own  well-being  for  a  moment  in 
such  a  contingency.  I  should  like  to  be  elected  President 
just  precisely  as  John  Quincy  Adams,  or  McKinley,  or 
Cleveland,  or  John  Adams,  or  Washington  himself,  desired 
to  be  elected.  It  is  pleasant  to  think  that  one 's  countrymen 
thought  well  of  one.  But  I  shall  not  do  anything  whatever 
to  secure  my  nomination  or  election  save  to  try  to  carry  on 
the  public  business  in  such  shape  that  decent  citizens  will 
believe  I  have  shown  wisdom,  integrity  and  courage.  If 
they  believe  this  with  sufficient  emphasis  to  secure  my  nom- 
ination and  election — and  on  no  other  terms  can  I,  or  would 
I,  be  willing  to  secure  either — why  I  shall  be  glad.  If  they 
do  not  I  shall  be  sorry,  but  I  shall  not  be  very  much  cast 
down  because  I  shall  feel  that  I  have  done  the  best  that  was 
in  me,  and  that  there  is  nothing  I  have  yet  done  of  which 
I  have  cause  to  be  ashamed,  or  which  I  have  cause  to  re- 
gret ;  and  that  I  can  go  out  of  office  with  the  profound  sat- 
isfaction of  having  accomplished  a  certain  amount  of  work 
that  was  both  beneficial  and  honorable  for  the  country." 


CHAPTEE  XXIII 

NOTABLE  SENTIMENTS  IN  SPEECHES  AND  LETTERS- 
ALASKA  BOUNDARY— WIDE  RANGE  OF  READING 

During  1903  the  President  made  several  speeches  on  oc- 
casions of  special  moment,  in  which  he  uttered  sentiments 
which  attracted  wide  approval,  and  are  as  self -revelatory 
as  his  letters.  Speaking  at  the  grave  of  Lincoln,  Spring- 
field, Illinois,  on  June  4,  he  said : 

' '  It  seems  to  me  eminently  fitting  that  the  guard  around 
the  tomb  of  Lincoln  should  be  composed  of  colored  soldiers. 
It  was  my  own  good  fortune  at  Santiago  to  serve  beside 
colored  troops.  A  man  who  is  good  enough  to  shed  his 
blood  for  his  country  is  good  enough  to  get  a  square  deal 
afterwards.  More  than  that  no  man  is  entitled  to,  and  less 
than  that  no  man  shall  have." 

This  declaration  called  forth  the  publication  of  a  letter 
from  Lincoln  which  was  said  to  have  been  written  in  1864, 
to  General  James  S.  Wadsworth,  of  New  York,  and  which 
contained  the  following  passage: 

"How  to  better  the  condition  of  the  colored  race  has  long 
been  a  study  which  has  attracted  my  serious  and  careful 
attention ;  hence  I  think  I  am  clear  and  decided  as  to  what 
course  I  shall  pursue  in  the  premises,  regarding  it  as  a  re- 
ligious duty,  as  the  nation's  guardian  of  these  people  who 
have  so  heroically  vindicated  their  manhood  on  the  battle- 
field, where,  in  assisting  to  save  the  life  of  the  Eepublic, 
they  have  demonstrated  their  right  to  the  ballot,  which  is 
but  the  humane  protection  of  the  Flag  they  have  so  fear- 
lessly def  ended." 

In  a  speech  on  Labor  Day,  September  7,  1903,  at  Syra- 
cuse, N.  Y.,  the  President  said: 

256 


NOTABLE  SENTIMENTS  IN  SPEECHES  AND  LETTERS  257 

"  There  is  no  worse  enemy  of  the  wage-worker  than  the 
man  who  condones  mob  violence  in  any  shape  or  who 
preaches  class  hatred;  and  surely  the  slightest  acquaint- 
ance with  our  industrial  history  should  teach  even  the  most 
short-sighted  that  the  times  of  most  suffering  for  our  people 
as  a  whole,  the  times  when  business  is  stagnant,  and  capital 
suffers  from  shrinkage  and  gets  no  return  from  its  invest- 
ments, are  exactly  the  times  of  hardship,  and  want,  and 
grim  disaster  among  the  poor.  If  all  the  existing  instru- 
mentalities of  wealth  could  be  abolished,  the  first  and  se- 
verest suffering  would  come  among  those  of  us  who  are 
least  well  off  at  present.  The  wage-worker  is  well  off 
only  when  the  rest  of  the  country  is  well  off;  and  he  can 
best  contribute  to  this  general  well-being  by  showing  san- 
ity and  a  firm  purpose  to  do  justice  to  others." 

Speaking  at  the  unveiling  of  a  statue  of  General  W.  T. 
Sherman,  in  "Washington,  on  October  15,  1903,  he  said: 

1 '  The  greatest  leaders,  whether  in  war  or  in  peace,  must 
of  course  show  a  peculiar  quality  of  genius;  but  the  most 
redoubtable  armies  that  have  ever  existed  have  been  re- 
doubtable because  the  average  soldier,  the  average  officer, 
possessed  to  a  high  degree  such  comparatively  simple  qual- 
ities as  loyalty,  courage,  and  hardihood.  And  so  the  most 
successful  governments  are  those  in  which  the  average  pub- 
lic servant  possesses  that  variant  of  loyalty  which  we  call 
patriotism,  together  with  common  sense  and  honesty.  We 
can  as  little  afford  to  tolerate  a  dishonest  man  in  the  public 
service  as  a  coward  in  the  army.  The  murderer  takes  a 
single  life ;  the  corruptionist  in  public  life,  whether  he  be 
bribe-giver  or  bribe-taker,  strikes  at  the  heart  of  the  com- 
monwealth. ' ' 

On  November  10,  1903,  the  President  convened  Congress 
in  advance  of  its  regular  date  of  meeting  in  order  that  it 
might  consider  the  legislation  necessary  to  put  into  opera- 
tion the  commercial  treaty  with  Cuba  which  had  been  rati- 
fied at  the  previous  session.    This  legislation  was  passed 


258  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

subsequently  by  both  bouses  of  Congress.  In  bis  message 
at  tbe  opening  of  the  regular  session,  dated  December  7, 
1903,  he  took  occasion  to  reassert,  without  modification,  his 
policy  in  regard  to  the  regulation  of  trusts  and  the  en- 
forcement of  law  with  equal  justice  to  all : 

"The  legislation  (in  regard  to  trusts)  was  moderate.  It 
was  characterized  throughout  by  the  idea  that  we  were  not 
attacking  corporations,  but  endeavoring  to  provide  for 
doing  away  with  any  evil  in  them;  that  we  drew  the  line 
against  misconduct,  not  against  wealth ;  gladly  recognizing 
the  great  good  done  by  the  capitalist  who  alone,  or  in  con- 
junction with  his  fellows,  does  his  work  along  proper  and 
legitimate  lines. 

i  i  Every  man  must  be  guaranteed  his  liberty  and  his  right 
to  do  as  he  likes  with  his  property  or  his  labor,  so  long  as 
he  does  not  infringe  the  rights  of  others.  No  man  is  above 
the  law  and  no  man  is  below  it;  nor  do  we  ask  any  man's 
permission  when  we  require  him  to  obey  it.  Obedience  to 
the  law  is  demanded  as  a  right ;  not  asked  as  a  favor. ' ' 

One  of  the  problems  that  Roosevelt  inherited  from  the 
McKinley  administration  was  the  Alaska  boundary  dis- 
pute between  the  United  States  and  Canada.  An  effort 
to  settle  it  through  a  Joint  High  Commission  had  failed, 
and  in  the  last  days  of  the  McKinley  administration  a  pro- 
posal was  made  by  the  British  Government  that  the  matter 
be  submitted  to  arbitration.  This  was  under  discussion 
when  Roosevelt  acceded  to  the  Presidency.  He  at  once 
took  control  of  the  question,  flatly  declined  arbitration,  and 
secured  in  January,  1903,  through  the  British  Minister  at 
Washington  the  negotiation  of  a  treaty  with  Great  Britain 
which  provided  for  a  mixed  tribunal  of  six  members,  three 
Americans  and  three  representatives  of  Great  Britain,  to 
consider  the  matter.  The  American  members  of  the  tri- 
bunal were  Senator  H.  C.  Lodge,  Elihu  Root,  Secretary  of 
War,  and  George  Turner,  formerly  U.  S.  Senator  from  the 
State  of  Washington.  The  British  members  were  Lord 
Alverston,  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England,  and  Sir  L.  A. 


NOTABLE  SENTIMENTS  IN  SPEECHES  AND  LETTERS  259 

Jette  and  A.  B.  Aylesworth  of  Canada.  Roosevelt's  atti- 
tude toward  this  tribunal  and  its  possible  outcome  was 
frankly  set  forth  in  a  letter  that  he  wrote  to  Justice  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes,  who  at  the  time  was  in  England  and  had 
sent  to  Koosevelt  an  account  of  a  conversation  that  he  had 
had  on  the  subject  with  the  Rt.  Hon.  Joseph  Chamberlain 
of  the  British  Cabinet.  As  Roosevelt's  letter  is  of  histori- 
cal value  in  showing  the  direct  methods  which  he  habitually 
employed  in  diplomatic  matters,  it  is  here  reproduced  in 
full: 

Personal. 

Oyster  Bay,  N.  Y., 
July  25,  1903 
My  dear  Judge  Holmes: 

I  thank  you  very  much  for  your  letter,  which  I  thorough- 
ly enjoyed.  There  is  one  point  on  which  I  think  I  ought  to 
give  you  full  information,  in  view  of  Chamberlain's  remark 
to  you.  This  is  about  the  Alaska  boundary  matter,  and  if 
you  happen  to  meet  Chamberlain  again  you  are  entirely  at 
liberty  to  tell  him  what  I  say,  although  of  course  it  must 
be  privately  and  unofficially.  Nothing  but  my  very  earnest 
desire  to  get  on  well  with  England  and  my  reluctance  to 
come  to  a  break  made  me  consent  to  this  appointment  of  a 
Joint  Commission  in  this  case ;  for  I  regard  the  attitude  of 
Canada,  which  England  has  backed,  as  having  the  scantest 
possible  warrant  in  justice.  However,  there  were  but  two 
alternatives.  Either  I  could  appoint  a  commission  and 
give  a  chance  for  agreement;  or  I  could  do  as  I  shall  of 
course  do  in  case  this  commission  fails,  and  request  Con- 
gress to  make  an  appropriation  which  will  enable  me  to 
run  the  boundary  on  my  own  hook.  As  regards  most  of 
Great  Britain 's  claim,  there  is  not,  in  my  judgment,  enough 
to  warrant  so  much  as  a  consideration  by  the  United  States ; 
and  if  it  were  not  that  there  are  two  or  three  lesser  points 
on  which  there  is  doubt,  I  could  not,  even  for  the  object  I 
have  mentioned,  have  consented  to  appoint  a  commission. 
The  claim  of  the  Canadians  for  access  to  deep  water  along 
any  part  of  the  Canadian  coast  is  just  exactly  as  inde- 


260  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

fensible  as  if  they  should  now  suddenly  claim  the  island  of 
Nantucket.  There  is  not  a  man  fit  to  go  on  the  commission 
in  all  the  United  States  who  would  treat  this  claim  any 
more  respectfully  than  he  would  treat  a  claim  to  Nantucket. 
In  the  same  way  the  preposterous  claim  once  advanced,  but 
I  think  now  abandoned  by  the  Canadians,  that  the  Portland 
Channel  was  not  the  Portland  Channel  but  something  else 
unknown,  is  no  more  worth  discussing  than  the  claim  that 
the  49th  Parallel  meant  the  50th  Parallel  or  else  the  48th. 
But  there  are  points  which  the  commission  can  genuinely 
consider.  There  is  room  for  argument  about  the  islands 
in  the  mouth  of  the  Portland  Channel.  I  think  on  this  the 
American  case  much  the  stronger  of  the  two ;  still,  the  Brit- 
ish have  a  case.  Again,  it  may  well  be  that  there  are  places 
in  which  there  is  room  for  doubt  as  to  whether  there  ac- 
tually is  a  chain  of  mountains  parallel  to  the  coast  within 
the  ten-league  limit.  Here  again  there  is  a  chance  for 
honest  difference  and  honest  final  agreement.  I  believe 
that  no  three  men  in  the  United  States  could  be  found  who 
would  be  more  anxious  than  our  own  delegates  to  do  jus- 
tice to  the  British  claim  on  all  points  where  there  is  even  a 
color  of  right  on  the  British  side.  But  the  objection  raised 
by  certain  Canadian  authorities  to  Lodge,  Boot  and  Turner, 
and  especially  to  Lodge  and  Root,  was  that  they  had  com- 
mitted themselves  on  the  general  proposition.  No  man  in 
public  life  in  any  position  of  prominence  could  have  pos- 
sibly avoided  committing  himself  on  the  proposition,  any 
more  than  Mr.  Chamberlain  could  avoid  committing  him- 
self on  the  question  of  the  ownership  of  the  Orkneys  if  some 
Scandinavian  country  suddenly  claimed  them.  If  this  claim 
embodied  other  points  as  to  which  there  was  legitimate 
doubt,  I  believe  Mr.  Chamberlain  would  act  fairly  and 
squarely  in  deciding  the  matter ;  but  if  he  appointed  a  com- 
mission to  settle  up  all  those  questions,  I  certainly  should 
not  expect  him  to  appoint  three  men,  if  he  could  find  them, 
who  believed  that  as  to  the  Orkneys  the  question  was  an 
open  one.  Similarly  I  wish  to  repeat  that  no  three  men  ^i 
for  the  position  could  be  found  in  all  the  United  States  who 


NOTABLE  SENTIMENTS  IN  SPEECHES  AND  LETTERS  261 

would  not  already  have  come  to  some  conclusion  as  to  cer- 
tain features  of  the  Canadian  claim — not  as  to  all  of  them. 

Let  me  add  that  I  earnestly  hope  that  the  English  under- 
stand my  purpose.  I  wish  to  make  one  last  effort  to  bring 
about  an  agreement  through  the  commission,  which  will 
enable  the  people  of  both  countries  to  say  that  the  result 
represents  the  feeling  of  the  representatives  of  both  coun- 
tries. But  if  there  is  a  disagreement  I  wish  it  distinctly 
understood,  not  only  that  there  will  be  no  arbitration  of  the 
matter,  but  that  in  my  message  to  Congress  I  shall  take  a 
position  which  will  prevent  any  possibility  of  arbitration 
hereafter;  a  position,  I  am  inclined  to  believe,  which  will 
render  it  necessary  for  Congress  to  give  me  the  authority 
to  run  the  line  as  we  claim  it,  by  our  own  people,  without 
any  further  regard  to  the  attitude  of  England  and  Canada. 
If  I  paid  attention  to  mere  abstract  right,  that  is  the  posi- 
tion I  ought  to  take  anyhow.  I  have  not  taken  it  because 
I  wish  to  exhaust  every  effort  to  have  the  affair  settled 
peacefully  and  with  due  regard  to  England's  dignity. 

Faithfully  yours, 

Theodoee  Roosevelt. 

Hon.  0.  W.  Holmes, 

Care  J.  S.  Morgan  &  Co., 
London,  England. 

It  was  known  at  the  time  that  Roosevelt  had  sent  troops 
to  Alaska,  and  though  the  primary  object  in  sending  them 
was  to  maintain  law  and  order  among  the  great  horde  of 
gold-seekers  in  the  Klondike,  still  it  was  believed  that  he 
would  not  hesitate  to  use  them  in  support  of  his  resolve  to 
ask  Congress  for  the  power  to  "run  the  line  as  we  claim 
it"  in  case  the  tribunal  failed  to  reach  an  agreement.  The 
tribunal  met  in  London  and  reached  an  agreement  on  Octo- 
ber 20,  1903.  In  his  message  to  Congress  on  December  3, 
following,  Roosevelt  said  of  the  settlement: 

"The  result  is  satisfactory  in  every  way.  It  is  of  great 
material  advantage  to  our  people  in  the  Far  Northwest. 
It  has  removed  from  the  field  of  discussion  and  possible 


262  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

danger  a  question  liable  to  become  more  acutely  accen- 
tuated with  each  passing  year.  Finally,  it  has  furnished 
signal  proof  of  the  fairness  and  good-will  with  which  two 
friendly  nations  can  approach  and  determine  issues  involv- 
ing national  sovereignty  to  a  third  power  for  adjudica- 
tion.,, 

Another  notable  diplomatic  triumph  of  the  year  was  also 
recorded  in  the  same  message : 

"  Early  in  July,  having  received  intelligence,  which  hap- 
pily turned  out  to  be  erroneous,  of  the  assassination  of  our 
vice-consul  at  Beirut,  I  despatched  a  small  squadron  to 
that  port  for  such  service  as  might  be  found  necessary  on 
arrival.  Although  the  attempt  on  the  life  of  our  vice-consul 
had  not  been  successful,  yet  the  outrage  was  symptomatic 
of  a  state  of  excitement  and  disorder  which  demanded  im- 
mediate attention.  The  arrival  of  the  vessels  had  the  hap- 
piest result.  A  feeling  of  security  at  once  took  the  place 
of  the  former  alarm  and  disquiet;  our  officers  were  cor- 
dially welcomed  by  the  Consular  body  and  the  leading  mer- 
chants, and  ordinary  business  resumed  its  activity.  The 
government  of  the  Sultan  gave  a  considerate  hearing  to 
the  representations  of  our  minister;  the  official  who  was 
regarded  as  responsible  for  the  disturbed  condition  of  af- 
fairs was  removed.  Our  relations  with  the  Turkish  Gov- 
ernment remain  friendly;  our  claims  founded  on  inequit- 
able treatment  of  some  of  our  schools  and  missions  appear 
to  be  in  process  of  amicable  adjustment." 

The  cordial  and  mutually  helpful  relations  that  existed 
between  the  President  and  members  of  his  Cabinet  are  re- 
vealed in  correspondence  which  passed  between  him  and 
them  at  various  times.  On  July  11,  1903,  he  wrote  from 
Oyster  Bay,  to  Secretary  Hay,  who  was  in  Washington : 

"By  this  time  it  is  absolutely  needless  for  me  to  tell  you 
not  merely  what  an  immense  help  you  are  to  me,  but  what 
a  perpetual  delight  and  comfort.  Of  course,  do  not  ever 
give  a  thought  to  the  newspaper  and  other  swine  who  de- 


NOTABLE  SENTIMENTS  IN  SPEECHES  AND  LETTERS  263 

light  to  invent  tales  about  our  relation.  Literally  I  never 
see  them.  When  I  came  in  I  thought  you  a  great  Secre- 
tary of  State,  but  now  I  have  had  a  chance  to  know  far 
more  fully  what  a  really  great  Secretary  of  State  you  are. 
As  for  those  who  first  of  all  portray  a  wholly  imaginary 
difference  between  us  and  then  attack  me  because  of  that 
difference — for  Heaven's  sake,  let  them  go  on!" 

To  this  Secretary  Hay  responded  on  July  13,  1903 : 

"Dear  Theodore: 

"I  thank  you  a  thousand  times  for  your  kind  and  gen- 
erous letter  of  the  11th.  It  is  a  comfort  to  work  for  a 
President  who  besides  being  a  lot  of  other  things,  happened 
to  be  born  a  gentleman." 

A  letter  to  Secretary  Hay  on  November  7,  1903,  shows 
how  careful  Roosevelt  was  not  to  offend  the  susceptibilities 
of  Congress  in  reference  to  its  prerogatives  concerning  the 
conduct  of  foreign  affairs : 

"  Uncle  Joe  Cannon  was  in  this  afternoon  and  was  very 
nice  indeed,  but  evidently  slightly  nervous  lest  the  preroga- 
tives of  Congress  in  foreign  affairs  should  be  overlooked 
by  us.  I  told  him  I  should  ask  you  to  keep  in  close  touch 
with  Congressman  Hitt  (Chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Foreign  Relations )  and  consult  with  him  on  any  point 
where  there  would  be  a  chance  of  Congress  feeling  that  it 
had  power  of  action.  Will  you  mind  getting  in  touch  with 
Hitt  and  advising  with  him  on  any  point  where  such  a  pos- 
sibility could  arise?  I  find  that  Congress  is  evidently  pre- 
pared to  be  a  little  sensitive  on  the  subject,  and  we  might 
as  well  forestall  possible  criticism." 

To  Secretary  Root,  who  resigned  the  war  portfolio,  his 
resignation  taking  effect  in  February,  1904,  when  he  was 
succeeded  by  William  H.  Taft,  the  President  wrote  on 
August  24,  1903 : 

"It  is  hard  indeed  for  me  to  accept  your  resignation ;  and 


264  HEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

I  do  so  not  only  with  keen  personal  regret,  but  with  a  lively- 
understanding  of  the  gap  your  withdrawal  will  create  in 
public  life.  My  sense  of  personal  loss  is  very  great;  and 
yet  my  sense  of  the  loss  to  the  Nation  as  a  whole  is  even 
greater.  You  have  been  over  four  years  Secretary  of  War. 
I  wonder  if  you  yourself  realize  how  much  you  have  ac- 
complished during  that  period.  If  you  will  turn  to  your 
first  reports  and  will  read  therein  the  recommendations 
you  made  in  order  that  the  army  might  be  put  on  an  effec- 
tive basis,  you  cannot  but  be  pleased  at  the  way  in  which 
these  recommendations  have  now  been  adopted  by  Con- 
gress as  well  as  by  the  administration,  and  have  become 
enacted  into  law  or  crystallized  into  custom.  We  have 
never  had  a  public  servant  of  the  government  who  has 
worked  harder  than  you  have  worked  during  these  four 
years  and  a  half,  and  this  not  merely  in  point  of  time,  but 
above  all  in  point  of  intensity;  and  your  success  has  been 
equal  to  your  labor.  The  only  reward  you  have  had,  or 
can  have,  is  the  knowledge  of  successful  achievement,  of  the 
performance  in  fullest  fashion  of  a  great  public  duty,  the 
doing  of  which  was  of  vital  importance  to  the  nation's 
welfare. 

"Your  duties  have  included  more  than  merely  the  admin- 
istration of  the  Department  and  the  reorganization  of  the 
army  on  an  effective  basis.  You  have  also  been  the  head 
of  the  Department  which  dealt  with  the  vast  and  delicate 
problems  involved  in  our  possession  of  the  Philippine 
Islands,  and  your  success  in  dealing  with  this  part  of  your 
work  had  been  as  signal  as  your  success  in  dealing  with  the 
purely  military  problem.  To  very  few  statesmen  indeed 
in  any  country  is  it  given  at  one  and  the  same  time  to 
achieve  signal  and  striking  triumph  in  the  administration 
and  reform  of  the  military  branch  of  the  government  and 
in  the  administration  of  what  was  in  effect  a  department 
of  insular  dependencies,  where  the  problems  were  new  to 
our  people  and  were  in  themselves  of  great  difficulty. 

"Moreover,  aside  from  your  work  in  these  two  divisions 
of  the  government  service,  I  appreciate  most  keenly  the 


NOTABLE  SENTIMENTS  IN  SPEECHES  AND  LETTERS  265 

invaluable  advice  and  assistance  you  have  rendered  me  in 
innumerable  matters  of  weight  not  coming  directly  in  your 
departmental  province,  but  in  which  I  sought  your  aid  with 
the  certainty  of  not  being  disappointed.  Your  position  on 
the  Alaska  Boundary  Commission  at  the  present  moment 
is  an  illustration  of  these  services. 

"May  all  good  fortune  attend  you  wherever  you  are; 
the  American  people  wish  you  well  and  appreciate  to  the 
full  the  debt  due  you  for  all  that  you  have  done  on  their 
behalf.' ' 

Incessant  and  exacting  as  were  the  official  activities  of 
the  President  during  the  first  two  years  of  his  service,  he 
still  was  able  to  find  time  for  a  really  extraordinary  amount 
of  miscellaneous  reading  as  the  following  letter,  under  date 
of  November  4, 1903,  to  Dr.  Nicholas  Murray  Butler,  Presi- 
dent of  Columbia  University,  shows: 

"You  remember  speaking  to  me  about  reading  and  espe- 
cially about  the  kind  of  books  one  ought  to  read.  On  my 
way  back  from  Oyster  Bay  on  election  day  I  tried  to  jot 
down  the  books  I  have  been  reading  for  the  past  two  years, 
and  they  run  as  follows.  Of  course,  I  have  forgotten  a 
great  many,  especially  ephemeral  novels  which  I  have  hap- 
pened to  take  up ;  and  I  have  also  read  much  in  the  maga- 
zines. Moreover,  more  than  half  of  the  books  are  books 
which  I  have  read  before.  These  I  did  not  read  through, 
but  simply  took  out  the  parts  I  liked.  Thus,  in  '  Waverley, ' 
I  omitted  all  the  opening  part;  in  ' Pickwick '  I  skipped 
about ;  going  through  all  my  favorite  scenes.  In  Macaulay 
I  read  simply  the  essays  that  appealed  to  me,  while  in  Keats 
and  Browning,  although  I  read  again  and  again  many  of  the 
poems,  I  think  there  must  be  at  least  eighty  or  ninety  per 
cent  of  the  poetry  of  each,  as  far  as  the  bulk  is  concerned, 
which  I  have  never  succeeded  in  reading  at  all.  The  old 
books  I  read  were  not  necessarily  my  favorites;  it  was 
largely  a  matter  of  chance.  All  the  reading,  of  course,  was 
purely  for  enjoyment,  and  of  most  desultory  character. 
With  this  preliminary  explanation,  here  goes! 


266  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

'  *  Parts  of  Herodotus;  the  first  and  seventh  books  of 
Thncydides;  all  of  Polybius;  a  little  of  Plutarch;  iEschy- 
lus's  'Orestean  Trilogy,'  and  the  ' Seven  against  Thebes'; 
Euripides'  'Hippolytus  and  Bacchae,'  and  Aristophanes' 
' Frogs';  parts  of  the  ' Politics'  of  Aristotle;  (all  of  these 
were  in  translation) ;  Ridgeway's  ' Early  Age  of  Greece'; 
Wheeler's  'Life  of  Alexander';  some  six  volumes  of  Ma- 
haffey's  'Studies  of  the  Greek  World' — of  which  I  only 
read  chapters  here  and  there;  two  of  Maspero's  volumes 
on  the  Early  Syrian,  Chaldean  and  Egyptian  civilizations — 
these  I  read  superficially;  several  chapters  of  Froissart; 
the  'Memoirs'  of  Marbot;  Bain's  'Life  of  Charles  the 
Twelfth';  Mahan's  'Types  of  Naval  Officers';  some  of 
Macaulay's  Essays;  three  or  four  volumes  of  Gibbon;  three 
or  four  chapters  of  Motley;  the  'Life  of  Prince  Eugene,' 
of  Admiral  de  Ruyter,  of  Turenne,  and  of  Sobieski  (all 
in  French) ;  the  Battles  in  Carlyle's  'Frederick  the  Great'; 
Hay  and  Nicolay's  'Lincoln,'  and  the  two  volumes  of  Lin- 
coln's 'Speeches  and  Writings' — these  I  have  not  only  read 
through,  but  have  read  parts  of  them  again  and  again; 
Bacon's  'Essays' — curiously  enough,  I  had  really  never 
read  these  until  this  year;  Mrs.  Roosevelt  has  a  volume 
which  belonged  to  her  grandfather,  which  she  always  car- 
ries around  with  her,  and  I  got  started  reading  this ;  '  Mac- 
beth'; 'Twelfth  Night';  'Henry  IV;  'Henry  V;  'Richard 
II';  the  first  two  cantos  of  'Paradise  Lost';  some  of  Michael 
Drayton 's  poems — there  are  only  three  or  four  I  care  for ; 
portions  of  ' Nibelungenlied ' ;  portions  of  Carlyle's  trans- 
lation of  Dante's  'Inferno';  Church's  'Beowulf;  Morris' 
translation  of  the  'Heimskringla,'  and  Dasent's  transla- 
tion of  the  'Sagas  of  Gisli  and  Burnt  Njal';  Lady  Greg- 
ory's and  Miss  Hull's  'Cuchulain  Saga,'  together  with  the 
'Children  of  Lir,'  the  'Children  of  Tuirenn,'  the  'Tale  of 
Deirdre,'  etc.;  the  'Precieuses  Ridicules,'  'Le  Barbier  de 
Seville';  most  of  Jusserand's  books — of  which  I  was  most 
interested  in  his  studies  of  the  'King's  Quhair';  Holmes' 
'Over  the  Teacups';  Lounsbury's  'Shakespeare  and  Vol- 
taire'; various  numbers  of  the  Edinburgh  Review  from 


NOTABLE  SENTIMENTS  IN  SPEECHES  AND  LETTERS  267 

1803  to  1850;  Tolstoi's  'Sebastopol  and  the  Cossacks'; 
Sinkiewicz's  'Fire  and  Sword'  and  parts  of  his  other  vol- 
umes; 'Guy  Mannering';  the  'Antiquary';  'Bob  Koy'; 
'Waverley';  'Quentin  Durward';  parts  of  'Marmion'  and 
the  'Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel';  Cooper's  'Pilot';  some  of 
the  earlier  stories  and  some  of  the  poems  of  Bret  Harte; 
Mark  Twain's  'Tom  Sawyer';  'Pickwick  Papers';  'Nich- 
olas Nickleby';  'Vanity  Fair';  'Pendennis';  'The  New- 
comes';  'The  Adventures  of  Philip';  Conan  Doyle's  'White 
Company';  Lever's  'Charles  O'Malley';  'Romances  of 
Brockden  Brown'  I  read  when  I  was  confined  to  my  room 
with  a  game  leg;  for  motives  of  curiosity  and  no  real  en- 
joyment; an  occasional  half  hour's  reading  in  Keats, 
Browning,  Poe,  Tennyson,  Longfellow,  Kipling,  Bliss  Car- 
man; also  in  Poe's  'Tales'  and  Lowell's  'Essays';  some  of 
Stevenson's  stories,  and  of  Allingham's  'British  Ballads'; 
Wagner's  'Simple  Life.' 

"I  have  read  aloud  to  the  children,  and  often  finished 
afterwards  to  myself,  'The  Rose  and  the  Ring';  Hans  An- 
dersen; some  of  Grimm;  some  of  'Norse  Folk  Tales'; 
stories  by  Howard  Pyle;  'Uncle  Remus'  and  the  rest  of 
Joel  Chandler  Harris'  stories  (incidentally  I  would  be 
willing  to  rest  all  that  I  have  done  in  the  South  as  regards 
the  negro  in  his  story  'Free  Joe').  Two  or  three  books  by 
Jacob  Riis;  also  Mrs.  Van  Vorst's  'Woman  Who  Toils,' 
and  one  or  two  similar  volumes;  the  'Nonsense  Verses'  of 
Carolyn  Wells,  first  to  the  children  and  afterward  to  Mrs. 
Roosevelt  and  myself;  Kenneth  Grahame's  'Golden  Age'; 
those  two  delightful  books  by  Somerville  and  Ross,  'All 
on  the  Irish  Shore,'  and  'Experiences  of  an  Irish  M.  P.'; 
Townsend's  'Europe  and  Asia';  Conrad's  'Youth';  'Phoe- 
nixiana';  'Artemus  Ward';  Octave  Thanet's  stories,  which 
I  always  like  when  they  deal  with  labor  problems ;  various 
books  on  the  Boer  War,  of  which  I  like  best  Viljoen's, 
Stevens',  and  'Studies'  by  the  writer  signing  himself 
Linesman;  Pike's  'Through  the  Sun-Arctic  Forest,'  and 
Peer's  'Cross  Country  with  Horse  and  Hound';  together 
with  a  number  of  books  on  big  game  hunting,  mostly  in 


268  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Africa;  several  volumes  on  American  outdoor  life  and 
natural  history,  including  the  reading  of  much  of  John 
Burroughs;  Swettenham's  'Beal  Malay';  David  Gray's 
' Gallops';  Miss  Stewart's  ' Napoleon  Jackson';  Janvier's 
' Passing  of  Thomas  and  Other  Stories';  "The  Benefactors'; 
'People  of  the  Whirlpool';  London's  'Call  of  the  Wild'; 
Fox's  'Little  Shepherd  of  Kingdom  Come';  Hamlin  Gar- 
land's 'Captain  of  the  Gray  Horse  Troop';  Tarkington's 
'Gentleman  from  Indiana';  Churchill's  'Crisis';  Beming- 
ton's  'John  Ermine  of  the  Yellowstone';  Wister's  'Vir- 
ginian,' 'Bed  Men  and  White,'  'Philosophy  Four,'  and 
'Lin  McLean';  White's  'Blazed  Trail,'  'Conjurer's  House,' 
and  'Claim  Jumpers';  Trevelyan's  'American  Bevolution.' 
Often  I  would  read  one  book  by  chance  and  it  would  sug- 
gest another. 

"There!  That  is  the  catalogue;  about  as  interesting  as 
Homer's  catalogue  of  the  Ships,  and  with  about  as  much 
method  in  it  as  there  seems  in  a  superficial  glance  to  be  in 
an  Irish  Stew." 

A  scarcely  less  notable  letter,  as  disclosing  the  dimen- 
sions of  the  President's  omnivorous  reading,  is  the  follow- 
ing to  the  Bt.  Hon.,  afterwards  Lord,  John  Morley,  under 
date  of  January  17,  1904 : 

"It  is  a  temptation  to  me  to  write  you  at  inordinate 
length  about  your  'Life  of  Gladstone.'  Incidentally,  you 
started  me  to  rereading  Lucretius  and  Finlay.  Lucretius 
was  an  astounding  man  for  pagan  Borne  to  have  produced 
just  before  the  empire.  I  should  not  myself  have  thought 
of  comparing  him  with  Virgil  one  way  or  the  other.  It 
would  be  too  much  like  comparing,  say,  Herbert  Spencer 
with  Milton,  excepting  that  part  dealing  with  death,  in  the 
end  of  the  third  book  (if  I  remember  right),  I  am  less 
struck  with  the  work  because  of  its  own  quality  (as  a  fin- 
ished product,  so  to  speak)  than  I  am  with  the  fact  that 
it  was  opening  up  a  totally  new  trail — a  trail  which  for 
very  many  centuries,  indeed  down  to  modern  times,  was 
not  followed  much  farther.    He  had  as  truly  a  scientific 


NOTABLE  SENTIMENTS  IN  SPEECHES  AND  LETTERS  269 

mind  as  Darwin  or  Huxley,  and  the  boldness  of  his  truth- 
telling  was  astonishing.  As  for  Finlay,  I  have  always  been 
fond  of  him.  But  I  would  not  like  to  be  understood  as  de- 
preciating Gibbon.  Personally  I  feel  that  with  all  their 
faults  Gibbon  and  Macaulay  are  the  two  great  English  his- 
torians, and  there  could  be  no  better  testimonial  to  their 
greatness  than  the  fact  that  scores  of  authors  have  each 
made  a  comfortable  life  reputation  by  refuting  some  single 
statement  of  one  or  the  other. 

"Of  course,  in  reading  the  Gladstone,  I  was  especially 
interested  because  of  the  ceaseless  unconscious  compari- 
sons I  was  making  with  events  in  our  own  history,  and 
with  difficulties  I  myself  every  day  encounter.  A  man  who 
has  grappled,  or  is  grappling,  with  Cuba,  Panama  and  the 
Philippines,  has  a  lively  appreciation  of  the  difficulties 
inevitably  attendant  upon  getting  into  Egypt  in  the  first 
place,  and  then  upon  the  impossibility  of  getting  out  of  it, 
in  the  second.  Perhaps  I  was  interested  most  of  all  in  your 
account  of  the  closing  years  of  Gladstone  's  career,  in  which 
' Home  Rule'  was  the  most  important  question  he  had  to 
face.  I  suppose  I  am  one  of  a  large  multitude  to  whom 
your  book  for  the  first  time  gave  a  clear  idea  of  what  Glad- 
stone's actual  position  was  in  the  matter,  and  of  the  gross 
injustice  of  the  assaults  upon  him.  You  make  it  clear,  for 
instance,  that  from  the  standpoint  of  Gladstone's  assail- 
ants, even,  there  was  far  more  to  be  said  against  the  con- 
sistency and  frankness  of  the  leaders  who  opposed  him 
and  the  leaders  who  deserted  him  than  against  his.  To  my 
mind  you  prove  your  case  completely, — and  I  have  always 
been  inclined  to  criticize  Gladstone  on  this  point,  although 
I  have  personally  been  a  Home-Ruler  ever  since  reading 
Lecky's  account  of  Ireland  in  the  eighteenth  century.  On 
no  position  do  I  feel  more  cordial  sympathy  with  Glad- 
stone's attitude  than  as  regards  Turkey  and  the  subjugated 
peoples  of  the  Balkan  peninsula." 


CHAPTEE  XXIV 
SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

The  year  1903  marks  what  Theodore  Roosevelt  always  con- 
sidered the  most  notable  and  widely  beneficent  achievement 
of  his  Presidential  career — the  possession  of  the  Isthmus 
of  Panama  and  the  consequent  construction  of  an  inter- 
oceanic  canal  across  it.  His  interest  in  the  project  began 
long  before  he  became  President.  While  he  was  Governor 
of  New  York,  he  entered  an  emphatic  protest  against  a 
treaty  which  Secretary  Hay  had  negotiated  with  the 
British  Government  and  which  was  presented  to  the 
United  States  Senate  for  ratification  on  February  5, 
1900.  This  is  known  as  the  first  Hay-Pauncefote 
treaty,  designed  to  abrogate  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty  of 
1850  and  make  possible  the  construction  of  an  Isthmian 
Canal.  Under  the  provisions  of  this  first  treaty  the  canal 
was  not  to  be  fortified  and  its  neutrality  was  to  be  guar- 
anteed by  all  nations  using  it.  As  soon  as  the  text  of  the 
treaty  was  published,  Governor  Roosevelt  wrote  a  friendly 
but  most  earnest  letter  to  Secretary  Hay  in  opposition  to 
it,  pointing  out  what  he  regarded  as  very  serious  defects 
in  it.  This  letter  is  published  in  full  in  Chapter  XIII  of 
this  volume.  It  outlined  with  clearness  and  force  the  course 
which  Roosevelt  as  President  was  to  carry  to  success  a 
few  years  later  when  he  secured  a  canal  built  with  Ameri- 
can money  and  operated  and  fortified  by  Americans  with- 
out the  cooperation  or  interference  of  any  foreign  nation. 
The  Senate  refused  to  ratify  the  first  treaty  in  the  form 
submitted,  and  added  amendments  which  did  away 
with  the  neutrality  provision  and  authorized  specifically 
the  fortifying  of  the  canal.  These  amendments  the  British 
Government  declined  to  accept,  and  the  treaty  failed.    Sec- 

270 


SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  271 

retary  Hay  was  greatly  chagrined  at  the  failure  and  sub- 
mitted his  resignation  to  President  McKinley,  who  refused 
to  accept  it.  Negotiations  were  resumed  and  on  November 
18,  1901,  the  second  Hay-Pauncefote  treaty  was  completed. 
Koosevelt  had  in  the  meantime  acceded  to  the  Presidency 
and  in  laying  the  treaty  before  the  Senate  he  said  of  it 
in  his  first  annual  message  to  Congress  on  December  3, 1901 : 
"In  this  treaty,  the  old  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty,  so  long 
recognized  as  inadequate  to  supply  the  base  for  the  con- 
struction and  maintenance  of  a  necessarily  American  ship 
canal,  is  abrogated.  It  specifically  provides  that  the  United 
States  alone  shall  do  the  work  of  building  and  assume  the 
responsibility  of  safeguarding  the  canal  and  shall  regulate 
its  neutral  use  by  all  nations  on  terms  of  equality  without 
the  guaranty  or  interference  of  any  outside  nation  from 
any  quarter.' ' 

The  treaty  was  ratified  by  the  Senate  on  December  16, 
1901.  While  it  did  not  in  terms  authorize  the  fortifying  of 
the  canal,  the  British  Government  consented  to  the  omission 
of  a  clause  in  the  first  treaty  forbidding  fortification,  and 
subsequently  acquiesced  in  the  assumption  by  the  American 
Government  that  it  was  entitled  to  fortify  under  the  provi- 
sion which  declared  that  the  United  States  "shall  be  at 
liberty  to  maintain  such  military  police  along  the  canal  as 
may  be  necessary  to  protect  it  against  lawlessness  and  dis- 
order.' ' 

As  soon  as  the  treaty  was  ratified,  attention  became  con- 
centrated upon  the  question  of  routes  for  an  Isthmian 
Canal.  A  Commission,  with  Rear  Admiral  A.  G.  Walker 
at  its  head,  which  had  been  appointed  by  President  McKin- 
ley in  March,  1899,  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  and  re- 
porting as  to  the  "most  feasible  and  practicable  route,' ' 
reported  in  December,  1901,  to  the  effect  that  the  cost  of 
constructing  a  canal  at  Nicaragua  was  $189,864,062,  and  of 
one  at  Panama,  $144,233,000;  that  the  new  reorganized 
Panama  Canal  Company  offered  to  sell  its  rights,  property 
and  franchises  for  $109,141,500,  which  would  bring  the  cost 


272  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

of  a  canal  by  the  Panama  route  up  to  $253,374,858;  that 
the  Commission  estimated  the  value  of  the  new  Panama 
Canal  Company's  property  at  $40,000,000;  and  that  in  view 
of  the  terms  offered  by  that  company,  the  Commission  was 
of  the  opinion  that  the  "most  practicable  and  feasible 
route ' '  was  by  way  of  Nicaragua. 

This  report  was  transmitted  to  Congress  by  President 
Eoosevelt  on  December  4,  1901.  On  January  4,  1902,  the 
president  of  the  new  Panama  Canal  Company  sent  word  by 
cable  from  Paris  to  Eear  Admiral  Walker  that  the  company 
was  willing  to  sell  its  properties  and  concessions  to  the 
United  States  Government  for  $40,000,000.  On  January 
18  the  Walker  commission  rendered  to  President  Eoosevelt 
a  supplementary  report,  transmitting  the  offer  of  the 
French  company  to  sell  for  $40,000,000,  and  declaring  it 
to  be  the  commission  's  opinion,  in  view  of  the  changed  con- 
ditions, that  the  "most  practicable  and  feasible  route' '  for 
a  canal  was  that  by  way  of  Panama. 

In  the  meantime,  while  these  negotiations  with  the 
French  company  were  in  progress,  the  House  of  Eepre- 
sentatives,  on  January  8,  1902,  passed  by  a  vote  of  225  to 
25  a  bill  authorizing  the  President  to  proceed  with  the  con- 
struction of  a  canal  by  way  of  Nicaragua,  at  a  cost  of 
$180,000,000,  and  appropriating  $10,000,000  on  account  for 
immediate  use.  When  the  bill  reached  the  Senate  it  en- 
countered vigorous  opposition.  The  supplementary  report 
of  the  Walker  commission  was  sent  to  Congress  on  January 
20,  and  proved  to  be  the  doom  of  the  Nicaraguan  project. 
An  amendment  to  the  House  bill  was  offered  by  Senator 
Spooner  which  converted  it  virtually  into  a  new  measure. 

After  a  long  debate,  marked  at  times  by  some  animosity, 
the  Spooner  bill  passed  the  Senate  on  June  19,  1902,  by  a 
vote  of  67  to  6,  and  passed  the  House  of  Eepresentatives  on 
June  26  by  a  vote  of  259  to  8.  It  was  signed  by  President 
Eoosevelt  on  June  28.  In  substance  it  authorized  the  Presi- 
dent to  acquire  for  and  in  behalf  of  the  United  States,  at  a 
cost  not  exceeding  $40,000,000,  all  the  rights,  privileges, 
franchises,  concessions,  and  property  on  the  Isthmus  of 


SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  273 

Panama  owned  by  the  new  Panama  Canal  Company;  to 
acquire  from  the  Eepnblic  of  Colombia,  on  such  terms  as 
he  might  deem  reasonable,  control  of  a  strip  of  land,  not 
less  than  six  miles  in  width,  between  the  two  oceans,  in 
which  to  construct  and  operate  a  canal;  to  acquire  such 
additional  territory  and  rights  from  Colombia  as  in  his 
judgment  would  facilitate  the  general  purpose ;  and,  when 
a  satisfactory  title  had  been  secured  from  the  new  Panama 
Canal  Company,  to  proceed  to  construct  a  canal  of  sufficient 
capacity  and  depth  to  afford  ' '  convenient  passage  for  ves- 
sels of  the  largest  tonnage  and  greatest  draft  now  in  use, 
and  such  as  may  be  reasonably  anticipated. ' '  In  case  satis- 
factory title  could  not  be  obtained  from  the  French  com- 
pany, the  act  authorized  the  President  to  take  the  neces- 
sary steps  to  permit  of  the  construction  of  a  canal  at 
Nicaragua. 

Immediately  following  the  enactment  of  the  Spooner  law 
Secretary  Hay  opened  negotiations  with  Dr.  Tomas  Her- 
ran,  Charge  d'affaires  of  the  Colombian  Government  at 
Washington,  for  the  conclusion  of  a  treaty  between  the 
United  States  and  Colombia  in  accordance  with  the  terms 
of  that  law.  The  negotiations  resulted  in  what  is  known 
as  the  Hay-Herran  convention,  which  was  signed  on  Janu- 
ary 22,  1903,  Dr.  Herran  signing  with  the  authority  of  the 
Colombian  Government.  The  treaty  was  sent  to  the  Senate 
on  January  23.  Writing  to  Secretary  Hay,  who  was  absent 
from  Washington,  on  March  12,  1903,  the  President  said: 

"I  am  now  sweating  blood  in  the  effort  to  get  the  two 
treaties  (Cuban  Eeciprocity  and  Colombian)  confirmed. 
Senator  Blank,  of  course,  had  been  filled  with  distrust  at 
the  last  moment  and  wanted  to  propose  one  or  two  amend- 
ments to  the  Panama  treaty.  He  is  an  admirable  man  of 
great  intellect;  but  I  wish  that  every  tom-cat  in  the  path 
did  not  strike  him  as  an  unusually  large  and  ferocious  lion. 
The  Democrats  are  doing  their  best  to  get  into  shape  to 
vote  solidly  against  both  treaties.  They  cannot  possibly 
do  this  against  the  Panama  treaty,  and  I  think  they  will 
find  it  difficult  to  do  so  against  the  Cuban  treaty,  although 


274  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

the  latter  is  as  yet  by  no  means  out  of  the  woods.  Gorman 
is  a  very  smooth  article,  and  though  he  will  exercise  some 
control  over  the  yahoos,  he  will  have  to  do  much  as  they 
desire,  and  unfortunately,  the  addition  of  his  ability  to  their 
loose-lipped  abhorrence  of  decency,  does  not  make  a  really 
attractive  combination." 

The  President's  prediction  as  to  the  fate  of  the  Panama 
treaty  was  verified,  for  it  was  ratified  without  change  on 
March  17, 1903.  It  authorized  the  new  Panama  Canal  Com- 
pany to  sell  and  transfer  to  the  United  States  all  its  rights, 
privileges,  properties  and  concessions,  as  well  as  the  Pan- 
ama Railroad;  ceded  to  the  United  States  for  the  purpose 
of  canal  construction  a  strip  of  land  thirty  miles  in  width 
between  the  two  oceans,  over  which  the  United  States 
should  have  administrative  control  for  police  and  sanita- 
tion purposes,  but  of  which  the  sovereignty  should  remain 
vested  in  Colombia;  stipulated  that  upon  the  exchange  of 
ratifications,  the  United  States  should  pay  to  Colombia 
$10,000,000  in  gold,  and  in  addition,  beginning  nine  years 
after  the  date  of  ratification,  should  pay  annually,  $250,000 
in  gold.  It  was  pointed  out  by  Secretary  Hay,  after  the 
rejection  of  the  treaty  by  Colombia,  that  the  bonus  of  $10,- 
000,000  was  a  sum  equivalent  to  two-thirds  of  what  was 
reputed  to  be  the  Colombian  public  debt,  and  that  the  an- 
nual payment  of  $250,000  was  equivalent  to  the  interest  on 
$15,000,000  at  the  rate  at  which  loans  could  be  obtained  by 
the  American  Government. 

The  Colombian  Congress  met  in  extra  session,  convened 
for  the  purpose  of  considering  the  treaty,  on  June  20,  1903. 
It  was  known  that  a  large  majority  of  its  members  were  op- 
posed to  ratification,  and  that  the  Colombian  Government 
controlled  it  absolutely.  The  treaty  itself  was  withheld 
on  a  pretext  that  it  must  be  signed  by  the  Vice  President 
before  being  sent  to  the  Congress.  In  the  meantime  a 
general  clamor  was  raised  for  more  favorable  terms  for 
Colombia  and  for  amendments  that  should  grant  them. 

On  June  10,  1903,  the  agent  of  the  new  Panama  Canal 


SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  275 

Company  at  Bogota  received  from  the  Colombian  Govern- 
ment an  official  note  saying  that  it  did  not  think  the  conven- 
tion would  be  ratified,  because  of  the  opinion  that  the  com- 
pensation was  insufficient,  but  that,  if  the  new  Panama 
Canal  Company  would  pay  to  Colombia  $10,000,000,  ratifi- 
cation could  be  secured. 

On  July  9,  1903,  General  Eafael  Eeyes,  spokesman  of  the 
government,  requested  the  American  Minister  at  Bogota 
to  say  to  Secretary  Hay,  as  the  Minister  did  at  once  by 
cable,  that  he  (Eeyes)  did  not  think  the  treaty  could  be 
ratified  without  two  amendments — one  stipulating  the  pay- 
ment of  $10;000/&old  by  the  new  Panama  Canal  Com- 
pany for  the  right  to  transfer  its  isthmus  property  to  the 
United  States,  and  the  other  increasing  the  bonus  which 
the  United  States  was  to  pay  to  Colombia  from  $10,000,000 
to  $15,000,000.  These  direct  attempts  to  extort  more  money 
as  the  price  of  ratification  were  unsuccessful.  Secretary 
Hay  replied,  on  July  13,  1903,  that  neither  of  the  proposed 
amendments  would  stand  any  chance  of  acceptance  by  the 
Senate,  while  any  amendment  whatever  or  unnecessary  de- 
lay in  ratification  of  the  treaty  would  greatly  imperil  its 
consummation. 

Two  days  later,  July  15,  1903,  the  treaty  was  submitted 
to  a  special  committee  of  nine  in  the  Colombian  Senate. 
It  was  reported  to  the  Senate  on  August  4,  1903,  with  a 
series  of  amendments  which  completely  changed  the  char- 
acter of  the  treaty.  On  July  31,  1903,  Secretary  Hay  sent 
the  following  cable  message  to  the  American  Minister  at 
Bogota : 

"Instructions  heretofore  sent  to  you  show  the  great  dan- 
ger of  amending  the  treaty.  This  government  has  no  right 
or  competence  to  covenant  with  Colombia  to  impose  new 
financial  obligations  upon  canal  company  and  the  President 
would  not  submit  to  our  Senate  any  amendment  in  that 
sense,  but  would  treat  it  as  voiding  the  negotiation  and 
bringing  about  a  failure  to  conclude  a  satisfactory  treaty 
with  Colombia.  No  additional  payment  by  the  United 
States  can  hope  for  approval  by  the  United  States  Senate, 


276  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

while  any  amendment  whatever  requiring  reconsideration 
by  that  body  would  most  certainly  imperil  its  consumma- 
tion." 

The  substance  of  this  message  was  communicated  at  once 
to  the  Colombian  Government.  On  August  12,  1903,  the 
Colombian  Senate  rejected  the  treaty  in  its  entirety  by 
unanimous  vote.  On  the  same  date  General  Eeyes  called 
upon  the  American  Minister  and  informed  him  that  the 
treaty  had  been  rejected  by  the  Colombian  Government  and 
leading  senators  in  the  belief  that  there  would  be  a  reaction 
in  public  sentiment  in  its  favor,  when  it  would  be  possible 
to  reconsider  and  ratify  it  without  amendment.  He  re- 
quested the  American  Minister  to  ask  the  American  Gov- 
ernment to  grant  two  more  weeks  for  the  consummation  of 
this  plan. 

This  message  was  communicated  to  President  Roosevelt 
at  Oyster  Bay,  and  on  August  19,  1903,  he  wrote  to  Secre- 
tary Hay : 

"On  your  way  back  cannot  you  stop  here,  and  we  will 
go  over  the  canal  situation?  The  one  thing  evident  is  to 
do  nothing  at  present.  If  under  the  treaty  of  1846  we  have 
a  color  of  right  to  start  in  and  build  a  canal,  my  off-hand 
judgment  would  favor  such  proceeding.  It  seems  that  the 
great  bulk  of  the  best  engineers  are  agreed  that  that  route 
is  the  best;  and  I  do  not  think  that  the  Bogota  lot  of  ob- 
structionists should  be  allowed  permanently  to  bar  one  of 
the  future  highways  of  civilization.  Of  course,  under  the 
terms  of  the  Act  we  could  now  go  ahead  with  Nicaragua, 
and  perhaps  would  technically  be  required  to  do  so.  But 
what  we  do  now  will  be  of  consequence,  not  merely  decades, 
but  centuries  hence,  and  we  must  be  sure  that  we  are  tak- 
ing the  right  step  before  we  act." 

After  consultation  with  the  President,  Secretary  Hay 
cabled  to  the  American  Minister  at  Bogota,  on  August  24, 
1903:  "The  President  will  make  no  engagement  on  the 
canal  matter,  but  I  regard  it  as  improbable  that  any  definite 


SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  277 

action  will  be  taken  within  two  weeks.' '    Again,  on  August 
29, 1903,  he  cabled  more  fully  to  the  American  Minister : 

"The  President  is  bound  by  the  Isthmian  Canal  statute, 
commonly  called  the  Spooner  law.  By  its  provisions  he  is 
given  a  reasonable  time  to  arrange  a  satisfactory  treaty 
with  Colombia.  When,  in  his  judgment,  the  reasonable  time 
has  expired,  and  he  has  not  been  able  to  make  a  satisfac- 
tory arrangement  as  to  the  Panama  route,  he  will  then 
proceed  to  carry  into  effect  the  alternative  of  the  statute. 
Meantime  the  President  will  enter  into  no  engagement  re- 
straining his  freedom  of  action  under  the  statute.' ' 

The  special  committee  of  the  Colombia  Senate,  on  Sep- 
tember 5, 1903,  reported  a  bill  approving  the  rejection  of  the 
treaty  and  authorizing  the  President  of  Colombia  to  con- 
clude treaties  for  the  construction  of  a  Panama  canal  under 
certain  conditions,  and  on  terms  most  generous  to  Colom- 
bia, but  the  measure  never  came  to  a  vote.  It  was  referred 
to  a  committee  that  made  a  report  on  October  14,  1903, 
which  was  read  in  the  Senate  and  which  presented,  without 
approval  or  dissent,  a  contention  that  the  last  extension 
of  the  Wyse  concession  for  a  canal  at  Panama,  granted  by 
Colombia  in  1900,  and  purchased  by  the  French  Canal  Com- 
pany^ fixing  October  31,  1910,  as  the  date  for  completion  of 
the  canal,  was  not  valid,  and  that  if  this  was  the  case,  the 
previous  extension  would  expire  at  the  end  of  1904  and  all 
canal  properties,  rights  and  franchises  would  revert  to 
Colombia.  Colombia  would  then  be  in  position  to  receive 
the  $40,000,000  which  the  treaty  proposed  the  United  States 
should  pay  to  the  new  Panama  Canal  Company,  as  well  as 
the  $10,000,000  bonus,  and  also  be  in  more  advantageous 
position  for  demanding  terms  from  the  United  States.  This 
plan  found  great  favor,  and  it  was  even  contended  that 
the  Colombia  Congress  had  full  power  to  annul  the  exten- 
sion in  case  it  saw  fit  to  do  so.  No  action  was  taken  on  the 
report,  and  on  October  31,  1903,  the  Congress  adjourned. 

The  President  was  keeping  a  close  watch  upon  the  pro- 
ceedings at  Bogota,  studiously  making  up  his  mind  as  to  the 


278  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

best  course  to  pursue.    On  September  15, 1903,  he  wrote  to 
Secretary  Hay: 

"Let  us  do  nothing  in  the  Colombia  matter  at  present. 
I  shall  be  back  in  Washington  by  the  28th  instant,  and  you 
a  week  or  two  afterward.  Then  we  will  go  over  the  matter 
very  carefully  and  decide  what  to  do.  At  present  I  feel 
that  there  are  two  alternatives.  First,  to  take  up  Nica- 
ragua; second,  in  some  shape  or  way  to  interfere  when  it 
becomes  necessary  so  as  to  secure  the  Panama  route  with- 
out further  dealing  with  the  foolish  and  homicidal  corrup- 
tionists  in  Bogota,  I  am  not  inclined  to  have  any  further 
dealings  whatever  with  those  Bogota  people.,, 

He  was  still  considering  the  subject  on  October  5,  1903, 
when  he  wrote  to  Senator  Hanna : 

"You  may  have  noticed  that  I  have  not  said  a  word  about 
the  canal.  I  shall  have  to  allude  to  it  in  my  message,  but 
I  shall  go  over  this  part  of  my  message  with  you  before 
putting  it  in  its  final  form.  I  am  not  as  sure  as  you  are 
that  the  only  virtue  we  need  exercise  is  patience.  I  think 
it  is  well  worth  considering  whether  we  had  not  better  warn 
these  Bogota  politicians  that  great  though  our  patience 
has  been,  it  can  be  exhausted.  This  does  not  mean  that  we 
must  necessarily  go  to  Nicaragua.  I  feel  we  are  certainly 
justified  in  morals,  and  therefore  justified  in  law,  under 
the  treaty  of  1846,  in  interfering  summarily  and  saying 
that  the  canal  is  to  be  built  and  that  they  must  not  stop  it. ' ' 

A  letter  which  the  President  wrote  at  this  time  to  Dr. 
Albert  Shaw,  editor  of  The  Review  of  Reviews,  is  of  first 
importance  historically,  showing  as  it  does  that  Roosevelt 
refused  to  give  encouragement,  even  by  suggestion,  to  the 
secession  of  Panama,  an  event  which  his  most  venomous 
critics  subsequently  charged  him  with  bringing  about  in 
guilty  and  secret  connivance  with  Secretary  Hay — an  out- 
rageous slander  which  persists  in  some  quarters  even  to 
the  present  day: 


SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  279 

Personal. 

White  House,  Washington, 
October  10, 1903. 
My  dear  Br.  Shaw: 

I  enclose  you,  purely  for  your  own  information,  a  copy 
of  a  letter  of  September  5th  from  our  Minister  to  Colom- 
bia. I  think  it  might  interest  you  to  see  that  there  was 
absolutely  not  the  slightest  chance  of  securing  by  treaty 
any  more  than  we  endeavored  to  secure.  The  alternatives 
were  to  go  to  Nicaragua,  against  the  advice  of  the  great 
majority  of  competent  engineers — some  of  the  most  com- 
petent saying  that  we  had  better  have  no  canal  at  this  time 
than  go  there — or  else  to  take  the  territory  by  force  without 
any  attempt  at  getting  a  treaty.  I  cast  aside  the  proposi- 
tion made  at  this  time  to  foment  the  secession  of  Panama. 
Whatever  other  governments  can  do,  the  United  States  can 
not  go  into  the  securing  by  such  underhand  means,  the 
cession.  Privately,  I  freely  say  to  you  that  I  should  be 
delighted  if  Panama  were  an  independent  State,  or  if  it 
made  itself  so  at  this  moment ;  but  for  me  to  say  so  publicly 
would  amount  to  an  instigation  of  a  revolt,  and  therefore 
I  can  not  say  it. 

With  great  regard, 

Sincerely  yours, 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 

President  Roosevelt's  poor  opinion  of  the  Colombian 
politicians  was  shared  by  Secretary  Hay.  I  was  talking 
with  the  Secretary  one  day  during  the  period  in  which  the 
rival  negotiations  were  in  progress,  in  regard  to  the  con- 
flicting claims  of  the  Nicaraguan  and  Panama  routes.  He 
was  describing  with  much  humor  the  diplomatic  antics  of 
the  representatives  of  the  two  governments,  when  he  paused, 
and  with  that  inviting  twinkle  in  his  eye  which  always  pro- 
claimed the  coming  of  a  happy  idea,  he  said:  "Talking 
with  those  fellows  from  down  there,  Bishop,  is  like  holding 
a  squirrel  in  your  lap  and  trying  to  keep  up  the  conversa- 
tion.' ' 


280  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

The  Colombian  Congress  rejected  the  treaty  with  full 
knowledge  that  a  revolution  was  impending  in  the  depart- 
ment or  state  of  Panama.  Like  knowledge  was  possessed 
by  the  American  Government.  On  June  9,  1903,  Secretary 
Hay  sent  a  cable  message  to  the  American  Minister  at  Bo- 
gota, in  which  he  said,  in  reference  to  Colombian  proposals 
to  amend  the  treaty,  that  the  Colombian  Government  "  ap- 
parently does  not  appreciate  the  gravity  of  the  situation,' ' 
that  the  treaty  embodied  the  propositions  presented  by 
Colombia  with  slight  modifications,  and  that  if  Colombia 
should  now  reject  it  the  "friendly  understanding  between 
the  two  countries  would  be  so  seriously  compromised  that 
action  might  be  taken  by  the  Congress  next  winter  which 
every  friend  of  Colombia  would  regret. ' *  The  substance  of 
this  message  was  communicated  at  once  to  the  Colombian 
Government.  On  July  5,  1903,  the  American  Minister  sent 
the  following  cable  message  to  Secretary  Hay : 

"Confidential.  Have  received  information  privately  that 
a  paraphrase  of  your  cipher  telegram  of  June  9  was  read 
in  the  Senate  secret  session.  Created  sensation.  Construed 
by  many  as  threat  of  direct  retaliation  against  Colombia 
in  case  the  treaty  is  not  ratified.  This,  and  the  statement 
of  just  arrived  members  of  Congress  from  Panama  that 
this  department  would  revolt  if  the  treaty  is  not  ratified, 
caused  alarm,  and  the  effect  is  favorable." 

Three  days  after  the  treaty  had  been  rejected  by  the 
Colombian  Senate,  the  American  Minister,  writing  to  Sec- 
retary Hay  under  date  of  August  15,  1903,  said:  "The 
Panama  representatives  have  lately  become  so  thoroughly 
imbued  with  the  idea  of  an  independent  republic  that  they 
have  been  more  or  less  indifferent  to  the  fate  of  the  treaty. " 
Cabling  on  August  31,  to  Secretary  Hay,  the  American  Min- 
ister said  that  Senator  Jose  Domingo  de  Obaldia,  who  had 
been  appointed  governor  of  Panama,  had  informed  him 
that  in  accepting  the  position  he  had  told  the  Colombian 
President  that  "in  case  the  department  found  it  necessary 
to  revolt  to  secure  canal  he  would  stand  by  Panama/ '    In 


SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  281 

another  message,  on  September  10,  1903,  the  American 
minister  said:  "The  appointment  of  Obaldia  is  regarded 
as  the  forerunner  of  separation, ' '  and  in  a  letter  on  the 
following  day  he  wrote:  "Senator  ObakhVs  separatist 
tendencies  are  well  known,  and  he  is  reported  to  have  said 
that,  should  the  canal  treaty  not  pass,  the  department  of 
Panama  would  declare  its  independence,  and  would  be  right 
in  doing  so.  That  these  are  his  opinions  there  is,  of  course, 
no  doubt/ ' 

Again,  on  October  21,  1903,  the  American  Minister  wrote 
to  Secretary  Hay:  "I  have  the  honor  to  inform  you  that 
there  is  no  disguising  the  alarm  existing  as  to  the  possible 
action  of  the  government  of  the  United  States  should  the 
feeling  of  dissatisfaction  undoubtedly  existing  in  the  de- 
partment of  Panama  find  expression  in  overt  acts." 

The  Colombian  Congress  adjourned  on  October  31,  1903, 
and  on  the  same  day  the  American  Minister  cabled  to  Secre- 
tary Hay:  "The  people  here  in  great  anxiety  over  con- 
flicting reports  of  secession  movements  in  the  Cauoa  and 
Panama.' ' 

In  the  United  States  the  possibility  of  a  revolution  in 
Panama,  in  case  of  the  rejection  of  the  treaty,  was  a  mat- 
ter of  public  knowledge  in  August,  1903.  Toward  the  end 
of  that  month  the  newspapers  began  to  publish  informa- 
tion in  various  forms  from  the  Isthmus  and  Bogota  similar 
to  that  quoted  above  from  the  files  of  the  State  Depart- 
ment. Toward  the  end  of  October  it  was  announced  in  the 
American  press  that  the  Colombian  Government  had  al- 
ready begun  the  movement  of  troops  to  the  Isthmus.  On 
October  15,  1903,  the  President  was  informed  by  Com- 
mander John  Hubbard,  of  the  navy,  that  a  revolution  had 
broken  out  in  the  department  of  Cauca,  and  on  the  follow- 
ing day,  at  the  request  of  Lieutenant-General  Young,  of 
the  United  States  army,  the  President  received  two  officers 
of  the  army  who  had  just  returned  by  way  of  Panama  from 
a  four  months '  trip  in  Venezuela  and  Colombia.  They  in- 
formed him  that  a  revolutionary  party  was  organizing  in 
Panama  with  the  object  of  separation  from  Colombia,  and 


282  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

was  collecting  arms  and  ammunition,  and  that  it  was  the 
general  belief  on  the  Isthmus  that  the  revolution  might 
occur  at  any  moment,  and  that  their  own  opinion  was  that 
failure  on  the  part  of  Colombia  to  ratify  the  treaty  would 
lead  to  immediate  revolution. 

In  view  of  this  condition  of  affairs,  President  Roosevelt, 
acting  in  accordance  with  the  unbroken  policy  of  the  gov- 
ernment since  the  ratification  of  the  treaty  of  1846  with 
New  Granada,  directed  the  Navy  Department  to  issue  such 
instructions  as  would  insure  having  American  naval  vessels 
within  easy  reach  of  the  Isthmus  in  the  event  of  disorder 
there.  Orders  were  issued  on  October  19,  1903,  for  one 
ship,  the  Boston,  to  proceed  to  San  Juan  del  Sur,  Nica- 
ragua; to  another,  the  Atlanta,  to  proceed  to  Guantanamo, 
Cuba;  and  to  a  third,  the  Dixie,  to  prepare  to  sail  from 
League  Island.  On  October  30,  1903,  a  fourth,  the  Nash- 
ville, Commander  Hubbard,  was  ordered  to  proceed  to 
Colon.  On  November  2,  1903,  when  it  was  evident  that  an 
outbreak  was  imminent,  instructions  were  sent  to  the  Nash- 
ville, Boston  and  Dixie  as  follows : 

"  Maintain  free  and  uninterrupted  transit.  If  interrup- 
tion is  threatened  by  armed  force,  occupy  the  line  of  rail- 
road. Prevent  landing  of  any  armed  force,  either  govern- 
ment or  insurgent,  at  any  point  within  50  miles  of  Panama. 
Government  force  reported  approaching  Isthmus  in  vessels. 
Prevent  their  landing  if,  in  your  judgment,  the  landing 
would  precipitate  a  conflict." 

Instructions  similar  to  these  had  been  issued  repeatedly 
during  previous  disorders  of  various  kinds  on  the  Isthmus, 
the  latest  instance  being  in  September,  1902,  when,  as  in 
1856,  1860,  1861,  1873,  1885,  and  in  1901,  sailors  and  ma- 
rines from  United  States  war-ships  were  landed  to  patrol 
the  Isthmus  to  protect  life  and  property  and  keep  transit 
free  and  open.  In  most  of  these  instances  the  troops  had 
been  landed  at  the  request  of  the  Colombian  Government. 

The  Nashville  arrived  at  Colon  at  5.30  p.  m.  on  November 
2, 1903.    At  daylight  on  the  following  morning  Commander 


( 


SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  283 

Hubbard  learned  that  a  Colombian  gun-boat,  Cartagena, 
had  come  in  during  the  night  with  four  hundred  or  five 
hundred  troops  on  board.  He  had  her  boarded  and  learned 
that  the  troops  were  for  the  garrison  at  Panama.  As  he 
had  not  yet  received  instructions,  he  did  not  feel  justified 
in  preventing  their  landing,  and  they  were  disembarked  at 
8.30  a.  m.  Their  commanding  officers,  Generals  Amaya  and 
Tovar,  with  four  others,  took  the  train  to  Panama,  leaving 
Colonel  Torres  in  command.  At  10.30  Commander  Hub- 
bard received  the  cable  message  with  the  instructions  cited 
above,  and  at  once  went  ashore.  Late  in  the  afternoon  he 
learned  that  there  had  been  a  revolution  in  Panama;  that 
Generals  Amaya  and  Tovar  and  the  other  four  Colombian 
officers  had  been  seized  and  were  held  as  prisoners ;  that  a 
provisional  government  had  been  established  and  a  military 
force  of  one  thousand  five  hundred  men  had  been  organized ; 
and  that  the  provisional  government  wished  the  Colombian 
troops  at  Colon  to  be  sent  to  Panama. 

The  general  superintendent  of  the  Panama  Railroad  had 
agreed  to  transport  the  Colombian  troops,  but  Commander 
Hubbard,  on  the  morning  of  November  4,  1903,  prohibited 
Ihe  transportation  of  troops  in  either  direction  in  order  to 
preserve  the  neutrality  of  the  Isthmus  and  free  and  unin- 
terrupted transit.  During  the  forenoon  of  November  4, 
1903,  Commander  Hubbard  was  informed  that  Colonel 
Torres  had  sent  word  to  the  United  States  consul  at  Colon 
that  if  Generals  Amaya  and  Tovar  and  the  other  Colombian 
officers  who  had  been  seized  at  Panama  were  not  released 
by  2  p.  m.  he,  Torres,  would  open  fire  on  the  town  of  Colon 
and  kill  every  United  States  citizen  in  the  place.  Com- 
mander Hubbard  had  all  the  American  citizens  of  Colon 
assembled  in  the  stone  building  of  the  Panama  Eailroad 
Company,  quickly  fortified  it  as  much  as  possible,  and  at 
1.30  p.  m.  landed  forty-two  men  from  the  Nashville  to  pro- 
tect the  building,  with  orders  not  to  fire  unless  fired  upon. 
The  American  women  and  children  were  placed  aboard  a 
Panama  Railroad  Company  steamer  and  a  German  steamer 
which  were  lying  at  the  wharf. 


284  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

The  Colombians  surrounded  the  railroad  building  soon 
after  the  Americans  had  taken  possession  of  it,  and  tried 
to  provoke  attack  from  the  American  troops,  but  the  latter 
were  cool  and  steady  arid  the  effort  failed. 

At  about  3.15  p.  m.  Colonel  Torres  entered  the  building 
for  an  interview,  declaring  that  the  whole  affair  was  a  mis- 
apprehension, that  he  was  most  friendly  to  Americans,  and 
saying  that  he  should  like  to  send  the  alcalde  of  Colon  to 
Panama  to  see  General  Tovar  and  have  him  direct  a  dis- 
continuance of  a  show  of  force.  This  request  was  granted 
and  a  special  train  over  the  Panama  Eailroad  was  supplied 
by  the  general  superintendent  for  the  alcalde's  journey. 
At  about  5.30  Colonel  Torres  stated  to  Commander  Hub- 
bard that  he  would  withdraw  his  Colombian  troops  to 
Monkey  Hill,  about  two  miles  outside  of  Colon,  on  condition 
that  the  American  troops  should  be  withdrawn  to  the 
Nashville.  This  proposition  was  accepted  and  faithfully 
complied  with  by  Commander  Hubbard.  On  the  morning 
of  November  5,  1903,  Commander  Hubbard  discovered  that 
Colonel  Torres  had  not  withdrawn  his  troops  to  Monkey 
Hill,  but  only  to  some  buildings  near  the  outskirts  of  the 
town,  giving  a  trivial  excuse  for  failure  to  keep  his  word. 
Learning  that  it  was  the  purpose  of  Colonel  Torres,  in  case 
he  did  not  receive  orders  from  General  Tovar  to  withdraw, 
to  bring  in  his  troops  and  occupy  Colon,  Commander  Hub- 
bard again  landed  an  armed  force,  reoccupied  the  railroad 
building,  brought  ashore  two  one-pounder  guns,  and 
mounted  them  in  position  of  defense  near  the  building. 
In  company  with  the  United  States  consul  he  then  sought 
and  obtained  an  interview  with  Colonel  Torres,  in  which 
he  told  him  that  he  had  re-landed  his  troops  because  of  his, 
Torres,  failure  to  keep  his  agreement;  that  his  sole  pur- 
pose in  landing  them  was  to  preserve  the  lives  and  prop- 
erty of  American  citizens;  that  his  attitude  was  one  of 
strict  neutrality ;  that  the  troops  of  neither  side  should  be 
transported;  and  that  free  and  uninterrupted  transit 
should  be  maintained,  if  necessary  by  force. 

He  tried  to  induce  Colonel  Torres  to  withdraw  to  Monkey 


SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  285 

Hill,  but  the  latter  replied  that  it  was  unhealthy  out  there. 
Later  in  the  forenoon  of  November  5,  1903,  the  alcalde  re- 
turned from  Panama  without  orders,  and  Colonel  Torres 
marched  his  Colombian  troops  again  into  Colon,  but  they 
made  no  threatening  demonstrations.  During  the  after- 
noon representatives  of  the  new  Panama  Government  suc- 
ceeded in  persuading  Colonel  Torres  to  embark  with  his 
troops  on  a  Royal  Mail  steamer,  Orinoco,  and  sail  to  Carta- 
gena. The  gun-boat  Cartagena,  on  which  he  had  come  to 
Colon,  had  left  port  immediately  after  the  threat  against 
Americans  had  been  made,  on  November  4,  1903. 

In  the  meantime,  while  the  American  naval  officer  was 
preventing  bloodshed  at  Colon,  the  new  Panama  Republic 
was  becoming  established  on  the  other  side  of  the  Isthmus. 
As  early  as  August,  1903,  a  junta  of  six  men  had  been 
named  by  advocates  of  separation  in  Panama  to  take  the 
leadership  in  plans  for  securing  independence.  It  had  been 
decided  first  to  have  the  revolution  on  September  22,  1903, 
the  date  set  for  the  adjournment  of  the  Colombian  Con- 
gress. When  adjournment  was  delayed  till  October  31, 
1903,  preparations  were  made  to  have  the  revolution  take 
place  on  November  4,  1903.  The  arrival  of  the  Colombian 
troops  at  Colon  on  November  3  forced  the  event  forward 
twenty-four  hours. 

The  Colombian  generals  arrived  in  Panama  about  11 
o'clock  on  the  morning  of  November  4,  1903,  and  were  re- 
ceived with  courtesy  by  the  authorities  and  the  populace. 
Later,  when  they  had  got  wind  of  the  impending  revolution, 
they  started  for  the  government  barracks  on  the  sea-wall 
to  call  out  the  troops  and  signal  to  three  Colombian  gun- 
boats that  were  lying  in  the  bay,  in  the  hope  of  frustrating 
the  plans  of  the  revolutionists.  On  their  arrival  they  were 
met  by  General  Esteban  Huertas,  in  command  of  the  garri- 
son, who  was  in  league  with  the  revolutionists,  who  ordered 
out  a  company  of  soldiers  and  arrested  them  as  prisoners 
of  war.  Governor  Obaldia,  the  Colombian  head  of  the  de- 
partment of  Panama,  was  also  arrested,  as  a  mere  formal 
act  of  deposition,  but  was  released  immediately.    The  three 


286  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Colombian  gun-boats  were  informed  by  signal  that  the  revo- 
lution had  been  effected,  it  being  supposed  that  they  would 
acquiesce  in  it.  Two  of  them  did,  but  the  commanding 
officer  of  the  third  sent  official  word  to  the  chief  of  police 
that  unless  the  imprisoned  Colombian  officers  were  set  at 
liberty  within  two  hours  he  would  shell  the  city.  At  the 
expiration  of  that  time  he  fired  two  shells,  one  of  which 
killed  a  Chinaman  on  the  street  near  the  barracks,  but  when 
fire  was  opened  upon  the  vessel  from  the  fortifications  she 
steamed  away,  never  to  return. 

On  the  following  morning  the  two  remaining  gun-boats 
ran  up  the  flag  of  the  new  Panama  Eepublic.  With  the  ex- 
ception of  the  Chinaman's  death  the  revolution  was  blood- 
less. 

The  formal  declaration  of  independence  was  made  on 
November  4,  1903.  The  municipal  council  of  the  city  of 
Panama  met  and  after  a  free  discussion  voted  unanimously 
in  favor  of  separation  from  Colombia  and  the  creation  of 
the  free  and  independent  Eepublic  of  Panama.  Pending  the 
formation  of  the  new  republic,  the  direction  of  affairs  was 
placed  in  the  hands  of  three  men,  who  later,  with  eleven 
others,  constituted  the  Committee  of  Provisional  Govern- 
ment. At  3  p.  m.  on  the  same  day  a  formal  declaration  of 
independence  was  read  at  a  mass-meeting  in  Cathedral 
Plaza. 

Generals  Amaya  and  Tovar,  with  their  associates,  were 
released  on  November  5, 1903,  on  pledge  of  leaving  the  Isth- 
mus as  soon  as  possible.  They  were  given  a  military  escort 
to  Colon,  but  arrived  there  too  late  to  sail  with  Colonel 
Torres  and  the  Colombian  troops  on  board  the  Eoyal  Mail 
steamer  Orinoco,  but  they  took  passage  for  Cartagena  on 
November  12, 1903. 

The  Dixie,  with  a  force  of  about  four  hundred  men,  en- 
tered the  harbor  of  Colon  at  7  p.  m.  in  the  evening  of  No- 
vember 5,  just  as  the  Orinoco  was  sailing  away.  On  the  fol- 
lowing morning  the  Atlcmta  arrived,  bringing  the  combined 
American  force  at  Colon  up  to  about  one  thousand  men. 
The  Maine  arrived  a  few  days  later.    The  Boston  arrived 


SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  287 

at  Panama  on  November  7,  and  was  joined  there  later  by- 
three  other  naval  vessels. 

On  November  7,  the  American  Minister  at  Bogota  sent  a 
cable  message  to  Secretary  Hay,  saying  that  General  Reyes 
was  about  to  start  for  Panama  with  full  powers,  and  wished 
to  be  informed  by  the  Secretary  before  starting  if  the  Amer- 
ican commander  at  Panama  would  be  ordered  to  cooperate 
with  him  with  the  new  Panama  Government  to  arrange 
peace  and  approval  of  the  treaty,  which  would  be  accepted 
on  condition  that  the  integrity  of  Colombia  be  preserved. 
On  the  same  day  the  Colombian  Government  asked  to  be 
informed  through  the  American  minister  whether  it  would 
be  allowed  to  land  troops  at  Colon  and  Panama  to  fight 
there  along  the  line  of  the  railway. 

These  messages  were  received  at  Washington  on  Novem- 
ber 10,  1903,  and  on  the  following  day  Secretary  Hay  re- 
plied that  it  "is  not  thought  desirable  to  permit  landing 
of  Colombian  troops  on  Isthmus,  as  such  a  course  would 
precipitate  civil  war  and  disturb  for  an  indefinite  period 
the  free  transit  we  are  pledged  to  protect." 

The  Republic  of  Panama  was  formally  recognized  by  the 
United  States  on  November  6,  1903,  in  the  following  mes- 
sage from  Secretary  Hay  to  the  consulate-general  at 
Panama : 

' '  The  people  of  Panama  having  by  an  apparently  unani- 
mous movement  dissolved  their  political  connection  with 
the  Republic  of  Colombia  and  resumed  their  independence, 
and  having  adopted  a  government  of  their  own,  republican 
in  form,  with  which  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
of  America  has  entered  into  relations,  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  in  accordance  with  the  ties  of  friendship 
which  have  so  long  and  so  happily  existed  between  the  re- 
spective nations,  most  earnestly  commends  to  the  govern- 
ments of  Colombia  and  of  Panama  the  peaceful  and  equit- 
able settlement  of  all  questions  at  issue  between  them.  He 
holds  that  he  is  bound,  not  merely  by  treaty  obligations,  but 
by  the  interests  of  civilization,  to  see  that  the  peaceable 
traffic  of  the  world  across  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  shall  not 


288  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

longer  be  disturbed  by  a  constant  succession  of  unnecessary 
and  wasteful  wars. ' ' 

The  same  message  was  sent  to  the  American  minister  at 
Bogota  on  November  6,  1903.  Within  a  few  weeks  all  the 
so-called  " great  powers"  of  the  earth,  following  the  lead 
of  the  United  States,  formally  recognized  the  independence 
of  the  Eepublic  of  Panama,  and  by  the  1st  of  March  fol- 
lowing practically  all  the  governments  of  the  world  except 
Colombia  had  recognized  it. 

The  news  of  the  revolution  had  scarcely  reached  Colombia 
before  its  government  began  to  confess  judgment  on  its 
conduct  toward  the  Hay-Herran  treaty.  On  November  6, 
1903,  the  American  Minister  at  Bogota  sent  a  cable  mes- 
sage to  Secretary  Hay  containing  an  offer  from  General 
Eeyes  to  reassemble  the  Colombian  Congress  and  ratify  the 
treaty  as  signed,  or  to  approve  it  by  government  decree, 
provided  the  United  States  Government  would  uphold  Co- 
lombia by  declaring  martial  law  and  suppressing  the  rev- 
olution on  the  Isthmus. 

The  charge  of  " conspiracy"  between  the  American  Gov- 
ernment and  the  revolutionists  in  Panama  was  made  as 
soon  as  the  news  of  the  revolution  was  published.  Writ- 
ing to  Dr.  Albert  Shaw  on  November  6, 1903,  the  President 
said  in  regard  to  it : 

"I  did  not  foment  the  revolution  on  the  Isthmus,  as  you 
know  from  my  previous  correspondence  with  you.  It  is 
idle  folly  to  speak  of  there  having  been  a  conspiracy  with 
us.  The  people  of  the  Isthmus  are  a  unit  for  the  canal, 
and  in  favor  of  separation  from  the  Colombians.  The  lat- 
ter signed  their  death  warrant  when  they  acted  in  such 
infamous  manner  about  the  signing  of  the  treaty.  Unless 
Congress  overrides  me,  which  I  do  not  think  probable, 
Colombia's  grip  on  Panama  is  gone  forever." 

Writing  to  Lawrence  Abbott  on  November  12,  1903,  the 
President  adduced  positive  proof  that  he  was  not  even  an- 
ticipating a  revolt: 


SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  289 

"I  wish,  by  the  way,  I  had  shown  you  when  you  were 
here  my  Message  on  the  Panama  subject.  I  had  written  it 
out  and  had  the  rough  draft  with  Hay's  marginal  correc- 
tions. It  was  written  the  very  end  of  October — that  is,  less 
than  a  week  before  the  outbreak  occurred — and  by  it  you 
would  have  seen  that  at  that  time  neither  Hay  nor  I  was 
preparing  for  the  outbreak,  and  that  the  message  was  drawn 
up  on  the  supposition  that  there  would  be  no  outbreak,  and 
that  I  should  have  to  face  the  problem  of  digging  the  canal 
anyhow. ' ' 

In  the  draft  of  the  message,  alluded  to  in  the  above  letter, 
the  President  had  recommended  to  Congress  that  the  Amer- 
ican Government  take  possession  of  the  Isthmus,  without 
regard  to  Colombia's  wishes  in  the  matter,  and  proceed  to 
build  the  canal.    He  had  written: 

"The  refusal  of  Colombia  properly  to  respond  to  our 
sincere  and  earnest  efforts  to  come  to  an  agreement,  or 
to  pay  heed  to  the  many  concessions  we  have  made,  ren- 
ders it  in  my  judgment  necessary  that  the  United  States 
should  take  immediate  action  on  one  of  two  lines;  either 
we  should  drop  the  Panama  canal  project  and  immediately 
begin  work  on  the  Nicaraguan  canal,  or  else  we  should  pur- 
chase all  the  rights  of  the  French  company,  and,  without 
any  further  parley  with  Colombia,  enter  upon  the  comple- 
tion of  the  canal  which  the  French  company  has  begun. 
I  feel  that  the  latter  course  is  the  one  demanded  by  the 
interests  of  this  Nation,  and  I  therefore  bring  the  matter 
to  your  attention  for  such  action  in  the  premises  as  you 
may  deem  wise.  If  in  your  judgment  it  is  better  not  to 
take  such  action,  then  I  shall  proceed  at  once  with  the 
Nicaraguan  canal." 

One  of  the  first  acts  of  the  provisional  government  of  the 
Republic  of  Panama  was  to  appoint,  on  November  6,  1903, 
Philippe  Bunau-Varilla  envoy  extraordinary  and  minister 
plenipotentiary  to  the  United  States,  with  full  powers  to 
conduct    diplomatic    and   financial   negotiations.      Bunau- 


290  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Varilla  was  in  Washington  at  the  time,  and  on  November 
13  he  was  received  formally  by  President  Eoosevelt  at  the 
White  House.  On  the  following  day  the  Secretary  of  State 
sent  a  cable  message  to  all  the  diplomatic  representatives 
of  the  United  States  in  foreign  countries  as  follows: 

"The  President  yesterday  fully  recognized  the  Republic 
of  Panama  and  formally  received  its  Minister  Plenipoten- 
tiary. You  will  promptly  communicate  this  to  the  govern- 
ment to  which  you  are  accredited. ' ' 

Writing  to  his  son,  Theodore,  on  November  15,  1903, 
the  President  thus  described  the  situation  at  the  moment: 

"I  have  had  a  most  interesting  time  about  Panama  and 
Colombia.  My  experiences  in  all  these  matters  give  me 
an  idea  of  the  fearful  times  Lincoln  must  have  had  in 
dealing  with  the  great  crisis  he  had  to  face.  When  I  see 
how  panic-struck  Senators,  business  men  and  everybody 
else  become  from  my  little  flurry  of  trouble,  and  the  wild 
clamor  they  all  raise  for  foolish  or  cowardly  action,  I  get 
an  idea  of  what  he  had  to  stand  after  Bull  Run  and  again 
after  McClellan's  failures  in  '62  and  the  party  defeat  in 
the  elections  of  that  year,  and  again  after  Fredericksburg 
and  Chancellorsville.  Why,  even  in  this  Panama  business 
the  Evening  Post  and  the  entire  fool  Mugwump  crowd  have 
fairly  suffered  from  hysterics ;  and  a  goodly  number  of  the 
Senators  even  of  my  own  party  have  shown  about  as  much 
backbone  as  so  many  angle  worms.  However,  I  have  kept 
things  moving  just  right  so  far." 


CHAPTER  XXV 
SECURING   THE   PANAMA    CANAL— CONCLUDED 

The  negotiation  of  a  treaty  between  the  United  States 
and  the  Republic  of  Panama  was  begun  at  once  by  Secre- 
tary Hay  and  Bunau-Varilla,  and  was  completed  and  signed 
by  them  at  Washington  on  November  18, 1903.  It  was  rati- 
fied by  Panama  on  December  2,  1903. 

In  his  annual  message  to  Congress,  December  7,  1903, 
and  in  a  special  message,  January  4, 1904,  President  Roose- 
velt gave  a  detailed  account  of  the  revolution  at  Panama 
and  of  his  conduct  in  recognizing  the  Republic.  In  the  two 
messages  he  set  forth  the  facts  which  have  been  stated  in 
the  present  narrative,  showing  that  in  53  years  there  had 
been  53  revolutions  on  the  Isthmus,  and  giving  the  full  text 
of  Commander  Hubbard's  official  report.  He  accompanied 
his  annual  message  with  the  treaty  which  Secretary  Hay 
and  Bunau-Varilla  had  drawn.  After  describing  the  events 
which  led  up  to  the  recognition  of  the  Republic,  he  said  in 
the  message  of  December  7: 

'  *  Under  such  circumstances,  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  would  have  been  guilty  of  folly  and  weakness, 
amounting  in  their  sum  to  a  crime  against  the  Nation,  had 
it  acted  otherwise  than  it  did  when  the  revolution  of  No- 
vember 3  last  took  place  in  Panama.  This  great  enterprise 
of  building  the  interoceanic  canal  can  not  be  held  up  to 
gratify  the  whims,  or  out  of  respect  to  the  governmental 
impotence,  or  to  the  even  more  sinister  and  evil  political 
peculiarities,  of  people  who,  though  they  dwell  afar  off, 
yet,  against  the  wish  of  the  actual  dwellers  on  the  Isthmus, 
assert  an  unreal  supremacy  over  the  territory.  The  pos- 
session of  a  territory  fraught  with  such  peculiar  capacities 
as  the  Isthmus  in  question  carries  with  it  obligations  to 

291 


292  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

mankind.  The  course  of  events  has  shown  that  this  canal 
can  not  be  built  by  private  enterprise,  or  by  any  other  nation 
than  our  own;  therefore  it  must  be  built  by  the  United 
States." 

In  the  same  message,  he  said  of  the  treaty: 
"By  it  our  interests  are  better  safeguarded  than  in  the 
treaty  with  Colombia  which  was  ratified  by  the  Senate  at  its 
last  session.  It  is  better  in  its  terms  than  the  treaties  of- 
fered to  us  by  the  Eepublics  of  Nicaragua  and  Costa  Rica. 
At  last  the  right  to  begin  this  great  undertaking  is  made 
available.  Panama  has  done  her  part  All  that  remains  is 
for  the  American  Congress  to  do  its  part  and  forthwith  this 
Republic  will  enter  upon  the  execution  of  a  project  colossal 
in  its  size  and  of  well-nigh  incalculable  possibilities  for  the 
good  of  this  country  and  the  nations  of  mankind. ' ' 

In  the  special  message  of  January  4,  1904,  he  said  of  the 
offer  of  General  Reyes,  already  quoted,  to  have  the  treaty 
ratified  by  the  Colombian  Congress  provided  the  President 
would  uphold  Colombia  in  declaring  martial  law  and  sup- 
pressing the  Panama  revolution : 

"I  pass  by  the  question  as  to  what  assurance  we  have 
that  they  would  now  keep  their  pledge  and  not  again  refuse 
to  ratify  the  treaty  if  they  had  the  power;  for,  of  course, 
I  will  not  for  one  moment  discuss  the  possibility  of  the 
United  States  committing  an  act  of  such  baseness  as  to 
abandon  the  new  Republic  of  Panama/ ' 

In  the  same  message  he  thus  referred  to  the  "conspiracy" 
slanders : 

"I  hesitate  to  refer  to  the  injurious  insinuations  which 
have  been  made  of  complicity  by  this  government  in  the 
revolutionary  movement  in  Panama.  They  are  as  desti- 
tute of  foundation  as  of  propriety.  The  only  excuse  for 
my  mentioning  them  is  the  fear  lest  unthinking  persons 
might  mistake  for  acquiescence  the  silence  of  mere  self- 
respect.  I  think  proper  to  say,  therefore,  that  no  one  con- 
nected with  this  Government  had  any  part  in  preparing, 


SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  293 

inciting,  or  encouraging  the  late  revolution  on  the  Isthmus 
of  Panama,  and  that  save  from  the  reports  of  our  military 
and  naval  officers,  given  above,  no  one  connected  with  this 
Government  had  any  previous  knowledge  of  the  revolution 
except  such  as  was  accessible  to  any  person  of  ordinary 
intelligence  who  read  the  newspapers  and  kept  up  a  current 
acquaintance  with  public  affairs.' ' 

Between  the  writing  of  the  two  messages  to  Congress  the 
President,  in  several  private  letters,  set  forth  his  convic- 
tions in  regard  to  the  course  he  had  pursued.  Writing  to 
Charles  S.  Osborn,  of  Michigan,  on  December  9,  1903,  he 
said: 

"  Just  at  the  moment  I  am  more  concerned  about  Panama 
than  anything  else.  Of  course,  to  me,  the  situation  is  sim- 
ple. In  its  essence  it  is  exactly  as  if  a  road  agent  had  tried 
to  hold  up  a  man,  and  the  man  was  quick  enough  to  take  his 
gun  away.  Under  such  circumstances  I  would  regard  it 
as  the  wildest  sentimental  folly  for  outsiders  to  claim  that 
the  road  agent  did  not  intend  to  shoot,  and  that  it  was  his 
gun  and  ought  to  be  given  back  to  him.  By  every  consider- 
ation of  equity,  and  of  legitimate  national  and  international 
interest,  what  we  have  done  was  right.  And  it  will  be  a 
lamentable  thing  if  a  twisted  party  feeling  should  join  with 
mere  hysteria  to  prevent  at  this  time  the  fulfilling  of  what 
has  been  accomplished. ' ' 

To  the  Kev.  Dr.  David  D.  Thompson,  editor  of  The  North- 
western Christian  Advocate,  he  entered  upon  a  more  elab- 
orate justification  of  his  conduct,  on  December  22,  1903 : 

' '  You  of  course  remember  that  during  the  Civil  War  the 
leaders  of  the  Confederates  in  the  South,  and  their  allies 
both  in  England  and  in  the  North,  insisted  that  the  move- 
ment for  the  independence  of  the  slave  States  against  the 
Union  was  identical  with  the  movement  for  the  indepen- 
dence of  the  original  thirteen  States  as  against  Great 
Britain,  and  that  Jefferson  Davis  stood  exactly  as  George 
Washington  did.     It  is  difficult  to  believe  now  that  such 


294  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

arrant  nonsense  was  ever  seriously  advanced.  But  it  is 
not  one  whit  more  absurd  than  to  say  that  the  secession 
of  Panama  from  Colombia  has  anything  in  common  with 
the  secession  of  the  eleven  slave-holding  States  from  the 
Union  in  1861. 

11 A  revolutionary  movement  can  only  be  justified  by 
showing  that  it  has  ample  cause,  and  that  good  will  follow 
from  its  success.  In  other  words,  each  revolutionary  move- 
ment must  be  judged  on  its  own  merits.  Under  Washing- 
ton, the  American  Colonies  revolted  because  the  Crown  and 
Parliament  of  England  strove  to  keep  them  in  subjection. 
Their  revolutionary  movement  was  right,  and  it  was  a  good 
thing  for  the  whole  world  that  it  succeeded.  Under  Jeffer- 
son Davis,  the  Southern  States  revolted  in  order  to  estab- 
lish a  slave-holding  republic,  and  to  break  up  the  greatest 
experiment  at  successful  democratic  republican  government 
which  the  world  had  ever  seen.  There  was  no  adequate 
cause — indeed  no  cause  whatever, — for  the  attempted  se- 
cession; and  if  successful,  the  movement  would  have  been 
fraught  with  incalculable  damage  to  all  mankind.  There- 
fore the  two  movements,  though  superficially  alike,  are  in 
points  of  morality  at  opposite  poles  from  each  other,  judged 
at  the  bar  of  history. 

"The  revolution  in  Panama,  or  secession  of  Panama,  is 
just  like  the  secession  of  Greece  from  Turkey  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  last  century,  and  of  the  other  Christian  States 
from  Turkey  later  on  in  the  century.  Panama  has  suffered 
oppression  for  years.  Not  only  was  its  secession  justifi- 
able but  if  it  had  had  the  power  it  would  not  have  been  war- 
ranted in  standing  such  oppression  for  twenty-four  hours. 
No  body  of  men  of  courage  and  power,  trained  as  you  and 
I  and  our  fellow-citizens  have  been  trained  in  self-govern- 
ment, in  liberty,  and  in  law-abiding  habits,  would  submit 
for  one  day  to  the  oppression  habitual  under  Colombian  rule 
in  Panama. 

1 '  Finally,  when  Colombia,  which  had  plundered  Panama, 
and  misgoverned  and  misruled  her,  declined  to  ratify  the 
treaty  for  the  canal — which  meant  giving  up  Panama's  last 


SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  295 

hope — the  people  of  Panama  rose  literally  as  one  man. 
When  once  this  rising  had  occurred  our  Government  was 
bound  by  every  consideration  of  honor  and  humanity,  and 
of  national  and  international  interest,  to  take  exactly  the 
steps  that  it  took." 

Several  other  letters,  written  at  this  time,  testify  to  the 
sincerity  of  the  President  in  the  matter: 

To  Samuel  W.  Small,  Georgia: 

December  29, 1903. — ' '  To  my  mind  this  building  of  the  ca- 
nal through  Panama  will  rank  in  kind,  though  not  of  course 
in  degree,  with  the  Louisiana  Purchase  and  the  acquisition 
of  Texas.  I  can  say  with  entire  conscientiousness  that  if  in 
order  to  get  the  treaty  through  and  start  building  the  canal 
it  were  necessary  for  me  forthwith  to  retire  definitely  from 
politics,  I  should  be  only  too  glad  to  make  the  arrangement 
accordingly;  for  it  is  the  amount  done  in  office,  and  not 
length  of  time  in  office,  that  makes  office  worth  having." 

To  Charles  F.  Lummis,  Los  Angeles,  Calif.: 

January  4,  1904. — "No  more  cruel  despotism  outside  of 
Turkey  exists  than  that  of  the  so-called  Colombia  Republic, 
under  present  political  and  ecclesiastical  management. 
Turkey  is  worse,  but  I  know  of  no  other  power  that  is  as 
bad.  To  the  worst  characteristics  of  seventeenth  century 
Spain,  and  of  Spain  at  its  worst  under  Philip  II,  Colombia 
has  added  a  squalid  savagery  of  its.  own,  and  has  combined 
with  exquisite  nicety  the  worst  forms  of  despotism  and  of 
anarchy,  of  violence  and  of  fatuous  weakness,  of  dismal 
ignorance,  cruelty,  treachery,  greed,  and  utter  vanity/  I 
cannot  feel  much  respect  for  such  a  country. 

* l  If  I  can  do  anything  to  make  it  better  I  shall  try  to,  and 
try  to  in  good  faith.  If  there  is  any  way  I  can  help  them 
build  railways,  even  by  an  act  of  Congress  granting  money, 
I  shall  be  glad  to  do  it." 

To  John  Bigelow,  New  York: 

January  6, 1904. — "Of  course  I  have  no  idea  what  Bunau- 
Varilla  advised  the  revolutionists,  or  what  he  said-  in  any  tel- 


296  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

egrams  to  them  as  to  either  Hay  or  myself ;  but  I  do  know,  of 
course,  that  he  had  no  assurances  in  any  way,  either  from 
Hay  or  myself,  or  from  any  one  authorized  to  speak  for  us. 
He  is  a  very  able  fellow,  and  it  was  his  business  to  find  out 
what  he  thought  our  Government  would  do.  I  have  no  doubt 
that  he  was  able  to  make  a  very  accurate  guess,  and  to  advise 
his  people  accordingly.  In  fact,  he  would  have  been  a  very 
dull  man  had  he  been  unable  to  make  such  a  guess." 

To  Senator  Lodge: 

January  6, 1904. — "I  was  interested  in  one  point  Senator 
Morgan  made.  That  is  where  he  quoted  Bunau-Varilla's 
article  in  Le  Matin,  September  2,  and  stated  that  it  so  fore- 
shadowed the  course  I  actually  took  that  undoubtedly  either 
Hay  or  I  must  have  inspired  it — this  was  the  substance  of 
what  he  said.  Now  I  am  much  pleased  that  he  should  have 
done  this.  MacVeagh  and  others  have  been  threatening  for 
some  time  to  produce  telegrams  from  Bunau-Varilla  which 
would  show  such  an  exact  knowledge  of  our  movements,  and 
even  our  intentions  as  regards  sending  ships  to  the  Isthmus, 
keeping  order  upon  it,  and  recognizing  any  revolutionary 
government,  as  to  make  it  evident  that  he  had  received  some 
assurances  from  us.  Indeed,  they  have  been  saying  that 
he  had  asserted  in  some  telegram  that  he  had  received  such 
assurances.  Of  course  as  I  have  said  once  for  all,  neither 
John  Hay  nor  I,  nor  any  one  speaking  for  us,  either  directly 
or  indirectly,  gave  such  assurances  or  such  information  in 
any  shape  or  way.  But  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  be  sure 
what  Bunau-Varilla  has  said  or  not  said,  and  therefore  I 
am  particularly  pleased  that  Morgan  should  have  brought 
out  this  article  in  Le  Matin.  It  really  is  a  remarkable  fore- 
cast of  what  we  actually  did,  and  yet  on  its  face  it  shows 
that  this  forecast  was  prepared  six  weeks  before  Bunau- 
Varilla  saw  either  Hay  or  me ;  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it 
appeared  about  a  week  before  I  called  John  Bassett  Moore 
out  to  Oyster  Bay  and  for  the  first  time  began  definitely 
to  formulate  my  policy  even  in  my  own  mind.  You  see  they 
have  proved  too  much.     They  have  proved  that  Bunau- 


SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  297 

Varilla  knew  what  we  were  going  to  do  six  weeks  before  he 
ever  saw  any  of  us  and  some  little  time  before  I  had  even 
begun  myself  to  make  up  my  mind  what  I  should  do." 

To  Cecil  Arthur  Spring-Rice,  British  Foreign  Office, 
London: 
January  18,  1904. — "I  have  been  having  most  interesting 
times.  I  have  succeeded  in  accomplishing  a  certain  amount 
which  I  think  will  stand.  I  believe  I  shall  put  through  the 
Panama  treaty  (my  worst  foes  being  those  in  the  Senate 
and  not  those  outside  of  the  borders  of  the  United  States) 
and  begin  to  dig  the  canal.  It  is  always  difficult  for  me  to 
reason  with  those  solemn  creatures  of  imperfect  aspirations 
after  righteousness,  who  never  take  the  trouble  to  go  below 
names.  These  people  scream  about  the  injustice  done  Co- 
lombia when  Panama  was  released  from  its  domination, 
which  is  precisely  like  bemoaning  the  wrong  done  to  Turkey 
when  Herzegovina  was  handed  over  to  Austria.  It  was  a 
good  thing  for  Egypt  and  the  Soudan,  and  for  the  world, 
when  England  took  Egypt  and  the  Soudan.  It  is  a  good 
thing  for  India  that  England  should  control  it.  And  so  it 
is  a  good  thing,  a  very  good  thing,  for  Cuba  and  for  Pan- 
ama and  for  the  world  that  the  United  States  has  acted  as 
it  has  actually  done  during  the  last  six  years.  The  people 
of  the  United?  States  and  the  people  of  the  Isthmus  and  the 
rest  of  mankind  will  all  be  the  better  because  we  dig  the 
Panama  Canal  and  keep  order  in  its  neighborhood.  And 
the  politicians  and  revolutionists  at  Bogota  are  entitled 
to  precisely  the  amount  of  sympathy  we  extend  to  other 
inefficient  bandits." 

Speaking  at  Dallas,  Texas,  on  April  5,  1905,  President 
Roosevelt  said  of  his  action : 

"Especially  as  regards  what  was  done  in  Panama,  I 
want  to  say  that  while  I  was  most  anxious  to  deserve  the 
approval  of  my  countrymen,  and  while  I  was  very  glad  to 
be  elected  President,  I  would  without  one  momenta  hesita- 
tion have  given  up  the  second  term  in  the  Presidency  rather 
than  not  to  have  begun  the  Panama  Canal." 


298  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Secretary  Hay  was  in  hearty  accord  with  every  step  of 
the  President's  course  and  joined  with  him  in  resenting  and 
refuting  the  charge  of  "  conspiracy. ' '  Writing  to  James 
Ford  Ehodes,  the  historian,  on  December  8,  1903,  the  Sec- 
retary said: 

"It  is  hard  for  me  to  understand  how  any  one  can  crit- 
icize our  action  in  Panama  on  the  grounds  upon  which  it 
is  ordinarily  attacked.  The  matter  came  to  us  with  amaz- 
ing celerity.  We  had  to  decide  on  the  instant  whether  we 
would  take  possession  of  the  ends  of  the  railroad  and  keep 
the  traffic  clear,  or  whether  we  would  stand  back  and  let 
those  gentlemen  cut  each  other's  throats  for  an  indefinite 
time,  and  destroy  whatever  remnant  of  our  property  and  in- 
terests we  had  there.  I  had  no  hesitation  as  to  the  proper 
course  to  take,  and  have  had  no  doubt  of  the  propriety  of 
it  since.,, 

To  General  Eeyes,  the  accredited  representative  of  the 
Colombian  Government,  who,  in  a  statement  of  grievances 
that  he  had  sent  to  Secretary  Hay,  had  spoken  of  "  gross 
imputations  upon  the  conduct  and  motives  of  the  American 
Government"  as  having  "appeared  in  reputable  American 
newspapers,"  the  Secretary  replied: 

'  '  The  press  in  this  country  is  entirely  free,  and  as  a  nec- 
essary consequence  represents  substantially  every  phase  of 
human  activity,  interest  and  disposition.  Not  only  is  the 
course  of  the  Government  in  all  matters  subject  to  daily 
comment,  but  the  motives  of  public  men  are  as  freely  dis- 
cussed as  their  acts;  and  if,  as  sometimes  happens,  criti- 
cism proceeds  to  the  point  of  calumny,  the  evil  is  left  to 
work  its  own  cure.  Diplomatic  representatives,  however, 
are  not  supposed  to  seek  in  such  sources  material  for  ar- 
guments, much  less  for  grave  accusations.  Any  charge 
that  this  Government,  or  any  responsible  member  of  it, 
held  intercourse,  whether  official  or  unofficial,  with  agents 
of  revolution  in  Colombia,  is  utterly  without  justification. 

"Equally  so  is  the  insinuation  that  any  action  of  this 
Government,  prior  to  the  revolution  in  Panama,  was  the 


SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  299 

result  of  complicity  with  the  plans  of  the  revolutionists. 
The  Department  sees  fit  to  make  these  denials  and  makes 
them  finally. ' ' 


In  the  same  reply,  the  Secretary  also  wrote : 
"The  Isthmus  was  threatened  with  desolation  by  another 
civil  war,  nor  were  the  rights  and  interests  of  the  United 
States  alone  at  stake,  the  interests  of  the  whole  civilized 
world  were  involved.  The  Republic  of  Panama  stood  for 
those  interests ;  the  Government  of  Colombia  opposed  them. 
Compelled  to  choose  between  these  two  alternatives,  the 
Government  of  the  United  States,  in  no  wise  responsible 
for  the  situation  that  had  arisen,  did  not  hesitate.  It  rec- 
ognized the  independence  of  the  Republic  of  Panama,  and 
upon  its  judgment  and  action  in  the  emergency  the  Powers 
of  the  world  have  set  the  seal  of  their  approval. ' ' 

One  especially  insidious  bit  of  ' '  evidence ' '  which  was  cir- 
culated industriously  for  the  purpose  of  showing  that  Sec- 
retary Hay  had  been  a  conspirator,  was  thus  disposed  of 
in  a  letter  from  the  Secretary  to  Senator  George  F.  Hoar 
on  January  11, 1904 : 

' i  The  President  tells  me  that  in  a  letter  to  him  you  refer 
to  a  newspaper  publication  to  the  effect  that  in  discussing 
the  subject  of  the  coming  revolution  in  Panama  with  a 
Mr.  Duque,  on  his  informing  me  that  the  revolution  was  to 
take  place  on  the  23rd  of  September,  I  had  said  to  him  that 
that  was  too  early,  and  it  ought  to  be  deferred.  I  now  find 
the  same  statement  copied  from  the  Evening  Post  in  a 
speech  by  Senator  Morgan  in  the  Senate. 

"It  seems  rather  humiliating  to  be  obliged  to  refer  to 
such  a  story,  but  since  you  mentioned  it  to  the  President 
and  since  it  seems  to  have  made  some  impression  upon 
your  mind,  I  venture  to  say  to  you,  confidentially,  that  I 
never  saw  Mr.  Duque  but  once,  that  I  never  saw  him  alone, 
and  that  nothing  in  the  remotest  degree  resembling  this 
printed  conversation  was  ever  said  by  either  of  us." 


300  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Writing  to  Professor  George  W.  Fisher,  of  Yale  Uni- 
versity, on  January  30,  Secretary  Hay  said: 

"I  am  sure  that  if  the  President  had  acted  differently 
when,  the  3rd  of  November,  he  was  confronted  by  a  critical 
situation  which  might  easily  have  turned  to  disaster,  the 
attacks  which  are  now  made  on  him  would  have  been  ten 
times  more  virulent  and  more  effective.  He  must  have 
done  exactly  as  he  did,  or  the  only  alternative  would  have 
been  an  indefinite  duration  of  bloodshed  and  devastation 
through  the  whole  extent  of  the  Isthmus.  It  was  a  time 
to  act  and  not  to  theorize,  and  my  judgment  at  least  is  clear 
that  he  acted  rightly." 

Finally,  in  an  address,  on  July  6,  1904,  which  he  made  at 
Jackson,  Michigan,  at  a  celebration  of  the  Fiftieth  Anni- 
versary of  the  Republican  Party,  Secretary  Hay  summed 
up  the  case  as  follows : 

"  There  has  been  more  noise  made  over  his  (President 
Roosevelt's)  suddenness  on  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  than 
elsewhere.  It  is  difficult  to  treat  this  charge  with  serious- 
ness. The  President  has  made  a  treaty  with  Colombia  at 
her  own  solicitation,  which  was  infinitely  to  her  advantage, 
to  inaugurate  an  enterprise  which  was  to  be  for  the  benefit 
of  the  world.  He  waited  with  endless  patience  while  Bo- 
gota delayed  and  trifled  with  the  matter,  and  finally  re- 
jected it,  and  suggested  new  negotiations  for  a  larger  sum. 
Panama,  outraged  by  this  climax  of  the  wrongs  she  had 
already  suffered,  declared  and  established  her  indepen- 
dence. The  President,  following  an  unbroken  line  of  pre- 
cedents, entered  into  relations  with  the  new  Republic,  and, 
obeying  his  duty  to  protect  the  transit  of  the  Isthmus  as 
all  other  Presidents  had  done  before  him,  gave  orders  that 
there  should  be  no  bloodshed  on  the  line  of  the  railway. 
He  said,  like  Grant,  'Let  us  have  peace  V  and  we  had  it. 
It  will  seem  incredible  to  posterity  that  any  American  could 
have  objected  to  this.  He  acted  wisely  and  beneficently,  and 
all  some  people  can  find  to  criticize  in  his  action  is  that  he 
was  too  brisk  about  it.    If  a  thing  is  right  and  proper  to 


SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  301 

do,  it  does  not  make  it  criminal  to  do  it  promptly.  No, 
gentlemen!  That  was  a  time  when  the  hour  and  the  man 
arrived  together.  He  struck  while  the  iron  was  white  hot 
on  the  anvil  of  opportunity,  and  forged  as  perfect  a  bit  of 
honest  statecraft  as  this  generation  has  seen." 

A  complete  justification  of  the  course  pursued  by  the 
President  was  afforded  by  Elihu  Eoot  in  an  address  which 
he  delivered  before  the  Union  League  Club  of  Chicago  on 
February  22,  1904.  In  this  address  Mr.  Root  showed  that 
under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  of  Colombia, 
adopted  in  1863,  the  State  of  Panama  had  been  vested  with 
" absolute  and  unqualified  sovereignty";  that  she  had  never 
legally  lost  this  sovereignty  but  had  been  deprived  of  it  by 
force  in  1886  by  Rafael  Nunez,  President  of  Colombia,  who 
had  declared  that  the  "Constitution  of  1863  no  longer  ex- 
ists."   What  Nunez  did  was  thus  described  by  Mr.  Root: 

i  i  He  put  Panama  under  martial  law,  not  during  the  civil 
war,  but  after  its  close,  and  appointed  a  governor  of  the 
state.  He  also  appointed  governors  for  the  other  states 
in  the  Confederation.  He  then  directed  these  governors 
to  appoint  delegates  to  a  constitutional  convention ;  and  the 
delegates  thus  appointed  framed  what  is  known  as  the 
Constitution  of  1886.  The  two  delegates  appointed  to  rep- 
resent Panama  in  this  convention  were  residents  of  Bogota. 
Neither  of  them  ever  resided  in  Panama,  and  one  of  them 
never  had  set  foot  in  Panama.  The  pretended  constitution 
thus  framed  by  the  appointees  of  Nunez  was  declared  to  be 
adopted  without  compliance  with  a  single  one  of  the  requi- 
sites prescribed  by  the  Constitution  of  1863  for  its  amend- 
ment. It  robbed  the  people  of  Panama  of  every  vestige  of 
self-government.  It  gave  them  a  governor  to  be  appointed 
by  the  president  at  Bogota,  and  he,  in  turn,  appointed  all 
the  administrative  officers  of  the  department.  It  left  to 
the  other  states  their  legislatures,  but  it  took  away  from 
Panama  its  legislature  and  subjected  the  Isthmus  directly  in 
all  things  to  the  legislative  authority  of  the  Congress  at  Bo- 
gota.   It  provided  that  the  president  might  at  any  time,  in 


302  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

case  of  civil  commotion,  declare  the  public  order  to  be  dis- 
turbed, and  that  he  should  thereupon  have  authority  to 
issue  decrees  having  the  force  of  legislative  enactments. 
It  gave  him  absolute  power  over  the  press  and  power  to 
imprison  or  expatriate  any  citizen  at  will.  It  took  away 
the  property,  the  powers,  the  corporate  existence,  the  civil 
organization  of  the  state,  and  placed  the  property  and  the 
lives  of  its  people  absolutely  under  the  authority  and  power 
of  a  single  dictator  in  a  distant  capital  with  which  there 
was  no  communication  by  land,  and  which  it  required  longer 
to  reach  than  it  did  to  reach  the  city  of  Washington.  This 
pretended  constitution  was  never  submitted  to  the  people 
of  Panama  for  their  approval  or  rejection.  It  was  never 
consented  to  by  them." 

Concerning  the  efforts  of  the  people  of  Panama  to  regain 
their  lost  sovereignty,  Mr.  Eoot  said: 

"The  people  of  Panama  fought  to  exhaustion  in  1885 
to  prevent  the  loss  of  their  liberty  and  they  were  defeated 
through  the  action  of  the  naval  forces  of  the  United  States. 
Three  times  since  then  they  have  risen  in  rebellion  against 
their  oppressors. 

"In  1895  they  arose  and  were  suppressed  by  force;  in 
1899  they  arose  again  and  for  three  years  maintained  a  war 
for  liberation,  which  ended  in  1902  through  the  interposi- 
tion of  the  United  States  by  armed  force.  The  rising  of 
November,  1902,  was  the  fourth  attempt  of  this  people  to 
regain  the  rights  of  which  they  had  been  deprived  by  the 
usurpation  of  Nunez.  The  rejection  of  the  canal  treaty  by 
the  Bogota  Congress  was  the  final  and  overwhelming  injury 
to  the  interests  of  Panama;  the  conclusive  evidence  of  in- 
difference to  her  welfare  and  disregard  of  her  wishes ;  and 
it  also  created  the  opportunity  for  success  in  her  persistent 
purpose  to  regain  civil  liberty ;  for  it  was  plain  that  under 
the  strained  relations  created  by  that  rejection,  the  United 
States  naturally  would  not  exercise  her  authority  again 
upon  the  Isthmus,  as  she  had  exercised  it  before,  to  aid  the 
troops  of  Colombia.    She  was  under  no  obligation  to  do  so, 


SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  303 

and  she  could  not  do  so  without  aiding  in  the  denial  of  her 
own  rights  and  the  destruction  of  her  own  interests.  Upon 
that  the  people  of  Panama  relied  in  their  last  attempt,  and 
they  relied  upon  it  with  reason. ' ' 

A  most  interesting  and  valuable  part  of  Mr.  Eoot  's  expo- 
sition is  the  following  concerning  the  fraudulent  character 
of  the  dictator  who  was  ruling  Colombia  when  the  Hay- 
Bunau-Varilla  treaty  was  rejected : 

"In  the  meantime  there  had  been  a  curious  grafting  of 
usurpation  upon  usurpation  at  Bogota.  In  1898  M.  A.  San- 
clamente  was  elected  president,  and  J.  M.  Maroquin,  vice- 
president,  of  the  republic  of  Colombia.  It  is  true  that  there 
was  no  freedom  of  election.  Our  minister  had  reported  of 
a  preceding  election:  'None  but  the  soldiers,  police,  ancl 
employees  of  the  Government  voted,  thus  making  the  vic- 
tory of  the  Government  complete';  but  there  was  a  form  of 
election,  and  Sanclamente  became  the  only  president  there 
was,  and  Maroquin  the  vice-president.  Article  twenty-four 
of  the  Constitution  of  1886  provided: 

"  'The  vice-president  of  the  republic  shall  perform  the 
duties  of  the  executive  office  during  the  temporary  absence 
of  the  president.  In  case  of  the  permanent  absence  of  the 
president,  the  vice-president  shall  occupy  the  office  of  the 
president  during  the  balance  of  the  time  for  which  he  was 
elected. ' 

"On  July  31, 1900,  the  vice-president,  Maroquin,  executed 
a  coup  d'etat,  by  seizing  the  person  of  the  president,  San- 
clamente, and  imprisoning  him  at  a  place  a  few  miles  out- 
side of  Bogota.  Maroquin  thereupon  declared  himself  pos- 
sessed of  the  executive  power  because  of  the  absence  of  the 
president.  He  then  issued  a  decree  that  public  order  was 
disturbed,  and,  upon  that  ground,  assumed  to  himself  legis- 
lative power  under  another  provision  of  the  constitution, 
which  I  have  already  cited.  Thenceforth,  Maroquin,  with- 
out the  aid  of  any  legislative  body,  ruled  as  the  supreme 
executive,  legislative,  civil,  and  military  authority  in  the 
so-called  republic  of  Colombia.     The  absence  of  Sancla- 


304  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

mente  from  the  capital  became  permanent  by  his  death  in 
prison  in  the  year  1902.  When  the  people  of  Panama  de- 
clared their  independence  in  November  last,  no  Congress 
had  sat  in  Colombia  since  the  year  1898,  except  the  special 
Congress  called  by  Maroquin  to  reject  the  canal  treaty,  and 
which  did  reject  it  by  a  unanimous  vote,  and  adjourned 
without  legislating  pn  any  other  subject.  The  constitu- 
tion of  1886  had  taken  away  from  Panama  the  power  of 
self-government  and  vested  it  in  Colombia.  The  coup  d'etat 
of  Maroquin  took  away  from  Colombia  herself  the  power  of 
government  and  vested.it  in  an  irresponsible  dictator." 

Summing  up  the  whole  matter,  Mr.  Root  said : 
"The  people  of  Panama  were  the  real  owners  of  the 
canal  route ;  it  was  because  their  fathers  dwelt  in  the  land, 
because  they  won  their  independence  from  Spain,  because 
they  organized  a  civil  society  there,  that  it  was  not  to  be 
treated  as  one  of  the  waste  places  of  the  earth.  They 
owned  that  part  of  the  earth's  surface  just  as  much  as  the 
State  of  New  York  owns  the  Erie  Canal.  When  the  sover- 
eign state  of  Panama  confederated  itself  with  the  other 
states  of  Colombia  under  the  constitution  of  1863,  it  did 
not  part  with  its  title  or  its  substantial  rights,  but  consti- 
tuted the  Federal  Government  its  trustee  for  the  represen- 
tation of  its  rights  in  all  foreign  relations,  and  imposed 
upon  that  Government  the  duty  of  protecting  them.  The 
trustee  was  faithless  to  its  trust ;  it  repudiated  its  obliga- 
tions without  the  consent  of  the  true  owner;  it  seized  by 
the  strong  hand  of  military  power  the  rights  which  it  was 
bound  to  protect;  Colombia  herself  broke  the  bonds  of 
union  and  destroyed  the  compact  upon  which  alone  de- 
pended her  right  to  represent  the  owner  of  the  soil.  The 
question  for  the  United  States  was:  Shall  we  take  this 
treaty  from  the  true  owner  or  shall  we  take  it  from  the 
faithless  trustee,  and  for  that  purpose  a  third  time  put 
back  the  yoke  of  foreign  domination  upon  the  neck  of  Pan- 
ama, by  the  request  of  that  Government  which  has  tried  to 
play  toward  us  the  part  of  the  highwayman?    There  was 


SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  305 

no  provision  of  our  treaty  with  Colombia  which  required 
us  to  answer  to  her  call,  for  our  guaranty  of  her  sovereignty 
in  that  treaty  relates  solely  to  foreign  aggression.  There 
was  no  rule  of  international  law  which  required  us  to  recog- 
nize the  wrongs  of  Panama  or  the  justice  of  her  cause,  for 
international  law  does  not  concern  itself  with  the  internal 
affairs  of  states.  But  I  put  it  to  the  conscience  of  the 
American  people  who  are  passing  judgment  upon  the  action 
of  their  Government,  whether  the  decision  of  our  President 
and  Secretary  of  State  and  the  Senate  was  not  a  righteous 
decision. 

"By  all  the  principles  of  justice  among  men  and  among 
nations  that  we  have  learned  from  our  fathers,  and  that  all 
peoples  and  all  governments  should  maintain,  the  revolu- 
tionists in  Panama  were  right,  the  people  of  Panama  were 
entitled  to  be  free  again,  the  Isthmus  was  theirs  and  they 
were  entitled  to  govern  it;  and  it  would  have  been  a  shame- 
ful thing  for  the  Government  of  the  United  States  to  re- 
turn them  again  to  servitude. ' ' 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  Mr.  Root  was  not  in  the 
Cabinet  at  the  time  of  the  Panama  incident  and  that  his  [  ^i 
treatment  of  it  was  that  of  an  impartial  outside  observer,  i 

After  the  Bunau-Varilla  treaty  had  been  sent  to  the  Sen-  /  v 
ate,  the  President  invited  the  leading  Republican  Senators 
to  come  to  the  White  House  for  a  consultation  with  him- 
self and  Secretary  Hay  concerning  it.  When  the  Senators 
came  they  were  found,  almost  to  a  man,  to  be  in  a  hostile 
frame  of  mind,  but  after  several  hours  of  earnest  discus- 
sion, they  one  by  one  came  to  the  view  of  the  President  and 
Secretary  and  promised  to  support  the  treaty.  As  they 
were  leaving,  an  eminent  Senator  from  a  Western  State, 
noted  for  ability  as  an  expert  political  balancer,  said  in  a 
low  tone  to  Hay :  "  Do  it,  but  be  as  gentle  as  you  can  with 
Colombia."  "Which,"  said  Hay,  in  reporting  the  incident 
to  me,  ' '  reminded  me  of  the  instruction  of  the  Western  out- 
law chief :    i  Kill  him,  but  kill  him  easy ! '  ' ' 

The  treaty  was  ratified  by  Panama  on  December  2,  1903. 


306  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

It  was  sent  to  the  United  States  Senate  on  December  7,  and 
ratified  by  that  body  on  February  23,  1904.  It  was  ap- 
proved by  President  Eoosevelt  on  February  25,  and  pro- 
claimed on  the  following  day. 

Closely  following  the  ratification  of  the  treaty  by  the 
Senate,  the  President  appointed  a  Commission  to  take 
charge  of  the  construction  of  the  canal.  The  full  history  of 
his  action  in  connection  with  the  work  is  recorded  in  sub- 
sequent chapters. 

One  of  the  President's  final  official  utterances  before 
leaving  office  was  a  special  message  to  Congress  on  Decem- 
ber 16,  1908,  in  reference  to  certain  newspaper  assertions 
to  the  effect  that  there  had  been  some  corrupt  action  by  or 
on  behalf  of  the  United  States  Government  in  connection 
with  the  acquisition  of  the  title  and  property  of  the  French 
Canal  Company  at  Panama.  It  was  charged  that  an  Amer- 
ican syndicate  had  acquired  the  French  Canal  Company's 
property  and  had  sold  it  to  the  United  States  Government 
at  a  "huge  profit"  to  the  members  of  the  syndicate,  who 
included  the  President's  brother-in-law,  Douglas  Eobinson, 
and  the  President-elect's  brother,  Charles  P.  Taft.  All  the 
charges  were  shown  subsequently  to  be  absolutely  without 
foundation.  The  President  used  vigorous  language  in  his 
message,  while  setting  forth  in  full  all  the  established  facts 
in  the  case,  with  citations  from  official  records  to  support 
them.  The  charges  had  been  published  originally  in  the 
New  York  World,  and  in  denouncing  them  the  President 
said: 

"These  stories  as  a  matter  of  fact  need  no  investigation 
whatever.  No  shadow  of  proof  has  been,  or  can  be,  pro- 
duced in  behalf  of  any  of  them.  They  consist  simply  of  a 
string  of  infamous  libels.  In  form,  they  are  in  part  libels 
upon  individuals,  upon  Mr.  Taft  and  Mr.  Eobinson,  for  in- 
stance. But  they  are,  in  fact,  wholly,  and  in  form  partly, 
a  libel  upon  the  United  States  Government.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve we  should  concern  ourselves  with  the  particular  indi- 
viduals who  wrote  the  lying  and  libelous  editorials,  articles 
from  correspondents,  or  articles  in  the  news  columns. 


SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  307 

"The  real  offender  is  Mr.  Joseph  Pulitzer,  editor  and 
proprietor  of  the  World.  While  the  criminal  offense  of 
which  Mr.  Pulitzer  has  been  guilty  is  in  form  a  libel  upon 
individuals,  the  great  injury  done  is  in  blackening  the  good 
name  of  the  American  people. 

"It  should  not  be  left  to  a  private  citizen  to  sue  Mr.  Pu- 
litzer for  libel.  He  should  be  prosecuted  for  libel  by  the 
governmental  authorities.  In  point  of  encouragement  of 
iniquity,  in  point  of  infamy,  or  wrongdoing,  there  is  nothing 
to  choose  between  a  public  servant  who  betrays  his  trust, 
a  public  servant  who  is  guilty  of  blackmail,  or  theft,  or 
financial  dishonesty  of  any  kind,  and  a  man  guilty  as  Mr. 
Joseph  Pulitzer  has  been  guilty  in  this  instance. 

"It  is  therefore  a  high  national  duty  to  bring  to  justice 
this  vilifier  of  the  American  people,  this  man  who  wantonly 
and  wickedly  and  without  one  shadow  of  justification  seeks 
to  blacken  the  character  of  reputable  private  citizens  and 
to  convict  the  government  of  his  own  country  in  the  eyes 
of  the  civilized  world  of  wrongdoing  of  the  basest  and 
foulest  kind,  when  he  has  not  one  shadow  of  justification  of 
any  sort  or  description  for  the  charge  he  has  made." 

Under  the  President's  direction,  Henry  L.  Stimson, 
United  States  District  Attorney  for  the  Southern  District 
of  New  York,  on  March  4,  1909,  filed  an  indictment  in  the 
Federal  Court  against  the  New  York  World  for  publish- 
ing the  charges.  The  case  was  carried  on  by  Henry  A. 
Wise,  Mr.  Stimson's  successor,  and  a  great  deal  of  testi- 
mony was  taken.  The  indictment  was  quashed,  on  February 
25, 1910,  on  the  ground  that  the  Federal  Court  did  not  have 
jurisdiction.  In  the  course  of  the  preparation  for  the  trial 
the  World  sent  a  commission  to  Panama,  accompanied  by 
its  lawyers,  to  try  to  discover  evidence  there  that  President 
Eoosevelt  and  the  Government  were  guilty  of  complicity  in 
setting  up  the  revolution.  They  failed  utterly.  No  such 
evidence  could  be  found.  A  memorandum  of  the  testimony 
adduced,  mainly  by  the  defendants,  which  was  prepared  by 
the  Assistant  District  Attorney  who  had  conducted  the 


308  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

deposition  and  filed  in  the  official  records,  concluded  as  fol- 
lows: 

"Not  a  word  of  testimony  was  introduced  to  show  that 
any  act  by  the  United  States  Navy  or  Army  which  could  be 
deemed  interference  or  anything  more  than  the  carrying 
out  of  the  policy  which  the  Government  has  always  pursued 
of  keeping  transit  across  the  Isthmus  free  from  disorder." 

In  later  years,  after  he  had  retired  from  the  Presidency, 
Eoosevelt  made  several  references  to  his  course  in  secur- 
ing the  canal  at  Panama  which  showed  complete  confidence 
in  the  justice  of  his  acts.  Speaking  at  Berkeley,  California, 
on  March  23,  1911,  he  said:  uIam  interested  in  the  Pan- 
ama Canal  because  I  started  it.  If  I  had  followed  tradi- 
tional, conservative  methods  I  should  have  submitted  a  dig- 
nified state  paper  of  probably  two  hundred  pages  to  Con- 
gress, and  the  debate  on  it  would  be  going  on  yet;  but  I 
took  the  Canal  Zone  and  let  Congress  debate  and  while  the 
debate  goes  on  the  canal  does  too."  The  expression  "I 
took  the  Canal  Zone ' '  aroused  much  comment  and  was  con- 
strued by  his  critics  as  an  admission  that  he  had  used  arbi- 
trary and  unjustifiable  methods.  That  this  criticism  did 
not  trouble  him  at  all  was  shown  in  the  following  passage 
from  an  address  that  he  delivered  before  the  National  Press 
Club  in  Washington  on  January  24,  1918 : 

"Panama  declared  itself  independent  and  wanted  to  com- 
plete the  Panama  Canal,  and  opened  negotiations  with  us. 
I  had  two  courses  open.  I  might  have  taken  the  matter 
under  advisement  and  put  it  before  the  Senate,  in  which 
case  we  should  have  had  a  number  of  most  able  speeches 
on  the  subject.  We  would  have  had  a  number  of  very  pro- 
found arguments,  and  they  would  have  been  going  on  now, 
and  the  Panama  Canal  would  be  in  the  dim  future  yet.  We 
would  have  had  a  half  century  of  discussion,  and  perhaps 
the  Panama  Canal.  I  preferred  we  should  have  the  Pan- 
ama Canal  first  and  the  half  century  of  discussion  after- 
ward. And  now  instead  of  discussing  the  canal  before  it 
was  built,  which  would  have  been  harmful,  they  merely  dis- 


SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  309 

cuss  me — a  discussion  which  I  regard  with  benign  in- 
terest.' ' 

While  the  criticism  was  irritating  because  of  the  natural 
unwillingness  on  the  part  of  reputable  men  to  give  the  dig- 
nity of  denial  to  such  base  accusations,  it  was  at  no  time 
seriously  annoying  to  the  President.  Usually  it  was  the 
subject  of  mirth  with  him  and  his  official  advisers  for  the 
Cabinet  was  a  unit  in  support  of  his  policy.  A  glimpse  of 
the  prevailing  good-fellowship  between  the  President  and 
his  associates  is  revealed  in  the  following  note  to  the  Pres- 
ident from  Secretary  Hay  on  December  4,  1906 : 

"Can  you  receive  Reyes  to-morrow,  Saturday?  If  so,  at 
what  hour?  Permit  me  to  observe,  the  sooner  you  see  him, 
the  sooner  you  can  bid  him  good-by. 

"I  have  a  complaint  to  make  of  Root.  I  told  him  I  was 
going  to  see  Reyes.  He  replied,  'Better  look  out!  Ex- 
Reyes  are  dangerous. ' 

"Do  you  think  that,  on  my  salary,  I  can  afford  to  bear 
such  things  f" 

A  partial  reopening  of  the  controversy  was  caused  by 
General  Reyes  in  1905,  when  he  had  become  President  of 
Colombia.  He  wrote  a  letter  to  President  Roosevelt  con- 
taining an  assertion  to  which  the  latter  replied  as  follows 
on  February  20,  1905 : 

"I  thank  you  for  your  confidential  letter.  Your  quota- 
tion of  me  is  substantially  correct  when  you  say  that  I  ad- 
dressed you  as  follows  on  the  occasion  of  your  visit  to  me 
as  Colombia's  agent  in  the  Panama  matter : 

"  'If  you  had  been  President  of  Colombia  you  would  have 
saved  Panama,  because  you  would  have  known  how  to  safe- 
guard its  rights  and  the  interests  of  all  and  would  have 
avoided  the  revolution  which  caused  its  secession  from  Co- 
lombia. In  that  case  my  Government  could  have  helped 
Colombia  to  be  one  of  the  richest  and  most  prosperous 
countries  in  South  America. ' 

"Like  you,  I  desire  to  draw  a  veil  over  the  past,  but  my 


310  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

dear  Mr.  President,  as  you  speak  of  your  country  as  being 
deeply  injured  by  my  country  do  let  me  point  out  to  you 
that  in  the  words  of  my  own  quoted  above  I  was  endeavor- 
ing to  show  why  I  thought  you  would  have  saved  Colombia 
from  the  trouble  that  befell  her  had  you  been  President. 
This  country,  so  far  from  wronging  Colombia,  made  every 
possible  effort  to  persuade  Colombia  to  allow  herself  to  be 
benefited.  I  cannot  seem  by  remaining  quiet  to  counte- 
nance for  one  moment  the  idea  that  this  country  did  any- 
thing but  show  a  spirit  not  merely  of  justice  but  of  gener- 
osity in  its  dealings  with  Colombia.  Had  you  been  Presi- 
dent, I  firmly  believe  that  this  spirit  would  have  been  met 
with  a  like  spirit  from  Colombia,  and  that  therefore  Co- 
lombia, by  the  mere  fact  of  ratifying  the  treaty  agreed 
upon  with  the  United  States,  would  have  prevented  the  rev- 
olution in  Panama  and  would  have  itself  become  rich  and 
prosperous. 

"You  say  you  are  lacking  at  present  the  means  of  ar- 
ranging in  a  decorous  manner  the  pending  questions  be- 
tween Colombia,  the  United  States,  and  Panama,  and  you 
ask  me  to  do  justice  and  thereby  help  you.  Of  course  if  I 
can  help  you  in  any  way  I  will ;  but,  my  dear  Mr.  President, 
I  do  not  quite  understand  what  it  is  expected  we  shall  do. 
If  the  people  of  Panama  desire  to  take  a  plebiscite  as  to 
whether  or  not  they  shall  resume  connection  with  Colombia, 
most  emphatically  I  have  no  objections  and  will  be  delighted 
so  to  inform  them;  but  I  cannot  press  them  unless  they 
desire  to  do  it.  So  about  their  assumption  of  a  portion  of 
Colombia's  debt.  We  have  stated  that  in  our  judgment 
this  should  be  done  by  Panama  and  we  are  informed  by 
their  Minister  here,  Mr.  Bunau-Varilla,  that  they  intended 
to  do  so;  but  we  cannot  force  them  to  do  it.  As  for  the 
purchase  of  the  Islands,  which  I  understand  Colombia 
would  like  to  sell  to  us,  our  Navy  Department  does  not 
deem  it  to  our  interest  to  procure  them,  and  I  am  very 
much  afraid  that  a  treaty  for  their  purchase  would  not  be 
approved  by  the  Senate  of  the  United  States. 


SECURING  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  311 

"I  have  shown  your  letter  to  Mr.  Hay.  I  wish  I  could 
write  you  in  a  manner  that  would  be  more  agreeable. ' ' 

When,  during  the  administration  of  President  Wilson,  a 
treaty  was  drawn  up  under  which  a  payment  of  $25,000,000 
was  to  be  made  to  Colombia,  Mr.  Eoosevelt  published  an 
article  denouncing  it  as  a  " Blackmail  Treaty"  and  travers- 
ing in  detail  the  history  of  his  proceedings  in  getting  pos- 
session of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama.  He  made  the  same  rev- 
elations in  regard  to  the  character  and  conduct  of  the  fraud- 
ulent government  of  Columbia  as  are  quoted  in  preceding 
pages  from  the  address  of  Mr.  Eoot.  In  closing  he  said: 
"The  proposed  treaty  is  a  crime  against  the  United  States. 
It  is  an  attack  upon  the  honor  of  the  United  States  which, 
if  justified,  would  convict  the  United  States  of  infamy." 

This  article  is  published  in  full  in  the  volume  of  Roose- 
velt^ writings  entitled  "Fear  God  and  Take  Your  Own 
Part."    (George  H.  Doran  Company,  1915.) 


CHAPTEK  XXVI 
NATIONAL  CONVENTION  AND  CAMPAIGN  OF  1904 

Although  opposition  to  the  Presidents  nomination  ceased 
with  the  elimination  of  Senator  Hanna  as  a  candidate  at  the 
time  of  the  Ohio  State  Convention  in  June,  1903,  a  series  of 
efforts  was  begun  early  in  1904  and  continued  for  several 
months  to  induce  him  to  give  pledges  or  assurances  of  va- 
rious kinds  in  regard  to  the  course  he  should  pursue  after 
election.  Eepresentatives  of  various  interests  that  had 
been  opposing  his  nomination  visited  him,  assuring  him 
that  these  interests  had  not  objected  to  him  as  a  man  but 
had  been  uneasy  lest  he  pursue  to  extremes  certain  policies 
which  they  regarded  as  disturbing  and  harmful.  What 
these  representatives  desired  was  the  authority  to  say  to 
the  interests  that,  when  reelected,  he  would  consult  them 
about  all  important  matters  and  be  guided  by  their  counsel. 
They  were  afraid  that  if  they  could  not  give  this  assurance 
it  would  be  difficult  if  not  impossible  to  raise  a  campaign 
fund. 

The  President  listened  to  all  of  them  and  to  all  made  the 
same  reply.  He  could  only  promise  to  proceed  in  the  future 
as  he  had  acted  in  the  past;  that  he  should  always  consult 
the  leaders  of  his  party  and  others  whose  opinion  it  was 
desirable  to  have,  but  when  the  time  for  action  came,  he 
must  follow  his  own  judgment  and  conscience ;  that  so  far 
as  a  campaign  fund  was  concerned,  if  one  could  not  be 
raised,  the  campaign  must  be  conducted  without  it. 

Later,  when  the  campaign  opened  a  curious  mental  con- 
dition was  revealed.  The  managers  of  the  campaign  made 
no  request  for  contributions  from  people  who  had  been 

312 


NATIONAL  CONVENTION  AND  CAMPAIGN  OF  1904      313 

most  bitter  in  their  denunciation  of  the  President's  poli- 
cies. These  at  once  complained  because  they  had  not  been 
called  upon,  asking  if  failure  to  do  so  meant  that  they  were 
to  be  proceeded  against  after  election.  One  quite  promi- 
nent financial  magnate,  who  had  been  especially  vehement 
in  denunciation,  called  upon  the  managers,  and  asked: 
"What  does  this  mean?  Why  have  I  not  been  asked  to 
contribute?  Have  I  not  just  as  much  right  to  contribute 
as  anybody  else?  Am  I  to  be  discriminated  against  after 
election  ?" 

These  inquiries  revealed  in  a  striking  manner  the  concep- 
tion as  to  the  real  nature  of  campaign  contributions  which 
had  prevailed  previous  to  the  advent  of  Theodore  Roose- 
velt in  public  office.  Such  contributions  were  regarded  as 
purchasing  favors  of  various  kinds  after  election.  Roose- 
velt had  encountered  and  combated  this  view  when  he  was 
Governor  of  New  York,  and  he  was  about  to  encounter  and 
combat  it  in  his  approaching  Presidential  campaign.  Be- 
fore that  campaign  ended,  it  was  made  clear  to  all  men  that 
the  old  view  of  contributions  had  passed  away  and,  so  far 
as  Roosevelt  was  concerned,  a  new  one  had  taken  its  place. 

While  the  efforts  to  extort  concessions  of  one  kind  or 
another  were  in  progress  in  the  winter  of  1904,  the  Pres- 
ident, on  January  27,  wrote  to  a  friend  who  had  knowledge 
of  what  was  going  on : 

' i  To  use  the  vernacular  of  our  adopted  West,  you  can  bet 
your  bedrock  dollar  that  if  I  go  down  it  will  be  with  colors 
flying  and  drums  beating,  and  that  I  would  neither  truckle 
nor  trade  with  any  of  the  opposition  if  to  do  so  guaranteed 
me  the  nomination  and  election.  In  the  first  place,  I  be- 
lieve I  shall  win.  In  the  next  place,  and  what  is  infinitely 
more  important, — I  am  going  to  fight  it  out  on  the  line  I 
have  chosen  without  deviating  a  hair's  breadth  from  it,  win 
or  lose ;  for  I  am  sure  that  the  policies  for  which  I  stand  are 
those  in  accordance  with  which  this  country  must  be  gov- 
erned, and  up  to  which  we  must  all  of  us  live  in  public  or 
private  life,  under  penalty  of  grave  disaster  to  the  Nation.' ' 


314  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

That  he  felt  reasonably  assured  of  the  nomination  at 
this  time  is  shown  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  Albert  Shaw,  on  Jan- 
uary 30,  1904: 

"In  confidence,  I  can  tell  you  that  outside  all  the  South- 
ern States  I  am  now  as  certain  as  I  well  can  be  that  if 
Hanna  made  the  fight  (for  the  nomination),  and  with  all 
the  money  of  Wall  Street  behind  him,  he  would  get  the  ma- 
jority of  the  delegation  from  no  State  excepting  Ohio ;  and 
from  the  South  I  should  have  from  a  third  to  a  half  of  the 
delegates,  and  most  of  the  remainder  would  have  been 
pledged  to  me  and  would  have  to  be  purchased  outright 
against  me.  I  believe  that  the  best  advisers  among  my  op- 
ponents themselves  see  this  and  have  very  nearly  made  up 
their  minds  to  give  up  the  contest.  In  a  few  weeks  I  think 
that  most  of  the  Wall  Street  Republicans  will  have  con- 
cluded that  they  have  to,  however  grudgingly,  support  me. 
So  much  do  I  believe  this  that  I  am  a  little  uneasy  lest  our 
opponents  may  raise  the  cry  that  I  have  made  terms  with 
them.  Fortunately,  my  nomination  has  become  assured, 
in  my  judgment,  before  they  give  up  the  contest.  Besides, 
I  do  not  think  even  such  rather  thick-headed  people  as  my 
opponents  would  venture  to  try  to  make  terms  with  me 
now,  although  there  was  a  tentative  effort  in  that  direction 
in  October  and  November  last.  I  shall  treat  them  with 
scrupulous  fairness,  anyhow,  and  in  no  event  would  I  have 
done  either  more  or  less. ' ' 

There  was  much  speculation  at  this  period  about  prob- 
able Democratic  candidates  in  opposition  to  Roosevelt,  and 
considerable  sentiment  in  favor  of  Judge  Gray,  of  Dela- 
ware, whom  Roosevelt  had  placed  at  the  head  of  the  An- 
thracite Coal  Strike  Commission.  Writing  to  me  on  the 
subject  on  February  8,  1904,  the  President  made  what 
proved  later  to  be  genuine  prophecy :  "  I  do  not  think  the 
Democrats  will  nominate  Gray.  In  the  first  place  he  is 
too  good  a  fellow,  and  in  the  next  place  it  would  be  an 
absurdity  to  run  him  against  the  Republican  party  when 


NATIONAL  CONVENTION  AND  CAMPAIGN  OF  1904      315 

he  owes  his  position  to  one  Bepublican  President  and  his 
prominence  to  another  one." 

In  February,  1904,  Senator  Hanna,  who  had  been  in  fail- 
ing health  for  some  time,  died  quite  suddenly.  Writing  to 
Elihu  Root,  on  February  16,  1904,  the  President  gave  this 
sympathetic  estimate  of  his  character: 

1 '  Hanna 's  death  has  been  very  sad.  Did  I  tell  you  the 
last  letter  he  wrote  was  one  to  me?  As  soon  as  he  was  seri- 
ously sick  I  called  at  the  hotel,  as  a  matter  of  course.  For 
some  inexplicable  reason  this  affected  him  very  much,  and 
appealed  to  the  generous  and  large-hearted  side  of  his  na- 
ture, and  he  at  once  sent  me  a  pencil  note,  running  as  fol- 
lows: 

My  dear  Mr.  President: 

You  touched  a  tender  spot,  old  man,  when  you  called 
personally  to  inquire  after  me  this  a.  m.  I  may  be  worse 
before  I  can  be  better,  but  all  the  same  such  "drops"  of 
kindness  are  good  for  a  fellow. 

Sincerely  yours, 

M.  A.  Hanna. 
Friday,  p.  m. 

"No  man  had  larger  traits  than  Hanna.  He  was  a  big 
man  in  every  way  and  as  forceful  a  personality  as  we  have 
seen  in  public  life  in  our  generation.  I  think  that  not  merely 
for  myself,  but  the  whole  party  and  the  whole  country  have 
reason  to  be  very  grateful  to  him  for  the  way  in  which, 
after  I  came  into  office,  under  circumstances  which  were 
very  hard  for  him,  he  resolutely  declined  to  be  drawn  into 
the  position  which  a  smaller  man  of  meaner  cast  would 
inevitably  have  taken ;  that  is,  the  position  of  antagonizing 
public  policies  if  I  was  identified  with  them.  He  could  have 
caused  the  widest  disaster  to  the  country  and  the  public 
if  he  had  attacked  and  opposed  the  policies  referring  to 
Panama,  the  Philippines,  Cuban  reciprocity,  Army  reform, 
the  Navy,  and  the  legislation  for  regulating  corporations. 


316  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

But  he  stood  by  them  just  as  loyally  as  if  I  had  been 
McKinley." 


In  accordance  with  his  invariable  habit  when  a  candidate 
for  office,  the  President  studiously  avoided  taking  a  too 
sanguine  view  of  his  prospects.  Writing  on  April  4,  1904, 
to  Henry  White  in  London,  he  said : 

"  Nobody  can  tell  how  this  fight  will  come  out.  I  have 
been  astonishingly  successful  in  getting  through  the  policies 
in  which  I  believe,  and  in  achieving  results;  but  often  the 
mere  fact  of  having  a  good  deal  of  record  is  more  against 
a  man  than  for  him,  when  the  question  is  as  to  how  people 
will  vote ;  for  my  experience  is  that  usually  people  are  more 
apt  to  let  their  dislikes  than  their  likings  cause  them  to 
break  away  from  their  party  ties  in  matters  of  voting.  In 
other  words,  the  people  of  the  opposite  party  who  like  what 
I  have  done  are  less  apt  for  that  reason  to  leave  their  can- 
didate than  the  people  of  my  own  party  who  dislike  what 
I  have  done  are  apt  to  leave  me.  Politicians  proverbially 
like  a  colorless  candidate,  and  the  very  success  of  what  I 
have  done,  the  number  of  things  I  have  accomplished,  and 
the  extent  of  my  record,  may  prove  to  be  against  me.  How- 
ever, be  that  as  it  may,  we  now  have  a  big  sum  of  achieve- 
ment to  our  credit.' ' 

Senator  Hanna's  death  had  left  the  National  Republican 
Committee  without  a  chairman,  and  an  animated  contest 
was  begun  almost  immediately  over  the  choice  of  a  succes- 
sor. The  extreme  partisan  elements  of  the  party  were 
eager  to  have  one  of  their  own  number  selected  for  the  posi- 
tion and  urged  their  wishes  upon  the  President  with  great 
persistency.  He,  on  his  part,  was  determined  that  no  man 
should  be  selected  who  would  be  likely  to  give  pledges  dur- 
ing the  campaign  which  he  would  be  called  upon  to  carry 
out  after  election.  According  to  his  custom  he  sought  advice 
and  suggestion  from  men  of  all  shades  of  opinion.  I  was 
on  one  occasion  in  Washington  when  a  number  of  per- 


NATIONAL  CONVENTION  AND  CAMPAIGN  OF  1904      317 

sons  of  diverse  political  views  were  present.  Don  Cam- 
eron, the  veteran  Republican  politician  and  leader  of  Penn- 
sylvania, was  one  of  the  number  and  was  earnestly  advo- 
cating the  selection  of  an  astute  and  experienced  politician 
from  his  own  State.  He  took  me  aside,  and  standing  very 
close  to  me  said  with  really  solemn  intensity:  "I  like  and 
admire  the  President.  He  is  a  very  remarkable  man,  but 
he  does  some  extraordinary  things.  Now,  Mr.  Bishop,  I  am 
71  years  old ;  I  have  been  in  politics  70  years ;  and  the  Presi- 
dent asks  me  to  confer,  on  the  question  of  a  chairman  of  the 
Republican  National  Committee,  with  Nicholas  Murray 
Butler,  the  President  of  Columbia  University!  Now  what 
do  you  think  of  that!"  Mr.  Cameron's  feeling  toward 
amateur  politicians  was  shared  by  all  other  professionals 
of  his  kind,  but  the  President  was  merely  doing  what  he 
had  done  many  times  before,  conferring  with  persons  of  all 
varieties  of  opinion,  and  the  professionals  should  have  been 
used  to  it,  though  as  a  matter  of  fact  they  were  never  able  to 
comprehend  it,  or  to  contemplate  it  with  equanimity.  In 
the  end,  the  President  made  his  own  choice  and  selected  a 
man  in  whom  he  was  sure  he  could  place  absolute  confi- 
dence— George  B.  Cortelyou,  his  former  secretary  and,  at 
the  time,  Secretary  of  Commerce  and  Labor.  The  selec- 
tion was  opposed  vehemently  by  Senator  Piatt  of  New 
York  and  others  of  the  most  powerful  bosses  of  the  party, 
but  in  vain.  They  could  not  budge  the  President  from  his 
choice,  or  even  disturb  him  a  particle.  Writing  to  Senator 
Lodge,  on  May  28,  1904,  he  said  : 

"I  am  not  in  the  least  worried  about  the  discontent  on 
the  part  of  some  of  the  political  leaders  with  Cortelyou. 
As  Murray  Crane  and  Root  could  not  take  it,  Cortelyou  was 
the  man  of  all  others  to  have  it,  and  these  people  will  in 
the  end  find  out  that  this  is  so.  He  will  manage  the  can- 
vass on  a  capable  and  also  on  an  absolutely  clean  basis,  and 
my  canvass  cannot  be  managed  on  any  other  lines  either 
with  propriety  or  with  advantage.  If  I  win  at  all  this  year 
it  will  be  because  the  bulk  of  the  people  believe  I  am  a 
straightforward,  decent  and  efficient  man,  upon  whose  cour- 


318  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

age  and  common  sense  no  less  than  upon  whose  honesty  and 
energy  they  can  depend. ' ' 

The  appointment  of  Mr.  Cortelyou  to  the  chairmanship 
of  the  Republican  National  Committee  was  followed  by  his 
resignation  as  head  of  the,  Department  of  Commerce  and 
Labor,  and  the  resignation  of  Attorney  General  Knox,  who 
had  been  elected  United  States  Senator  by  Pennsylvania, 
led  to  several  changes  in  the  Cabinet  in  June.  Mr.  Cortel- 
you was  succeeded  by  Victor  L.  Metcalf ;  "William  H.  Moody, 
who  was  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  succeeded  Mr.  Knox  as 
Attorney  General,  and  Paul  Morton  succeeded  Mr.  Moody 
as  Secretary  of  the  Navy. 

In  accepting  Mr.  Knox's  resignation,  the  President  wrote 
on  June  23,  1904: 

"I  accept  your  resignation  not  only  with  keen  personal 
regret,  but  with  a  very  real  feeling  of  the  loss  the  country 
thereby  sustains.  .  .  .  There  is  nothing  that  I  can  say 
which  will  in  any  way  add  to  the  reputation  which  you 
have  won,  and  no  tribute  I  can  pay  you  will  approach  in 
value  that  already  paid  you  by  the  hearty  admiration  and 
respect  of  your  fellow  citizens.  .  .  .  Many  great  and  able 
men  have  preceded  you  in  the  office  you  hold;  but  there  is 
none  among  them  whose  administration  has  left  so  deep 
a  mark  for  good  upon  the  country's  development.  Under 
you  it  has  been  literally  true  that  the  mightiest  and  the 
humblest  in  the  land  have  alike  had  it  brought  home  to 
them,  that  each  was  sure  of  the  law's  protection  while  he 
did  right,  and  that  neither  could  hope  to  defy  the  law  if 
he  did  wrong.' ' 

In  March,  1904,  the  President  aroused  a  great  storm  of 
criticism  and  denunciation  from  the  chronic  opponents  of 
his  policies  by  establishing,  through  executive  order,  a  ser- 
vice pension  of  six  dollars  a  month  for  all  veterans  of  the 
Civil  War  between  the  ages  of  62  and  70  years.  It  was 
claimed  by  his  critics  that  in  doing  this  by  executive  order 
he  was  guilty  of  a  "flagrant  usurpation"  of  the  legislative 


NATIONAL  CONVENTION  AND  CAMPAIGN  OF  1904      319 

powers  of  Congress.  In  explanation  and  justification  of 
his  act,  the  President,  on  May  28,  1904,  wrote  a  long  letter 
to  his  friend,  Frederick  W.  Whitridge,  of  New  York,  in 
which  he  said : 

1 '  I  shall  write  you  so  that  you  may  know  exactly  the  facts 
about  the  pension  order.  There  were  two  sides  to  the 
matter.  The  first  was  the  situation  I  had  to  face  as  re- 
gards the  party  in  Congress.  The  second  was  the  moral 
justification  of  what  was  actually  done.  When  Congress 
met  I  found  that  the  feeling  was  overwhelmingly  for  a  full 
service  pension — that  is,  $12  a  month,  beginning  at  the  age 
of  62.  This  was  the  pension  granted  by  President  Cleve- 
land and  a  Democratic  House  to  the  Mexican  War  veterans 
thirty-nine  years  after  the  close  of  the  Mexican  War,  and 
the  argument  by  analogy  seemed  very  strong,  namely,  that 
if  men,  many  of  whom  afterwards  served  against  the  Union, 
were  entitled  to  $12  a  month  at  the  age  of  sixty-two,  thirty- 
nine  years  after  the  close  of  the  Mexican  War,  then  thirty- 
nine  years  after  the  close  of  an  infinitely  greater  and  more 
righteous  war  the  Union  veterans  were  entitled  to  the  same 
privilege.  Moreover,  I  soon  found  that  Congress  was 
nearly  a  unit  for  the  Service  Pension  bill.  If  allowed  to 
get  under  way  unchecked  the  bill  would  undoubtedly  have 
passed  both  houses  with  substantial  unanimity,  and  if  I 
had  vetoed  it  I  could  not  have  rallied  more  than  a  tenth 
of  the  House  nor  more  than  a  fifth  of  the  members  of  the 
Senate  to  my  support ;  and  I  should  have  hated  to  veto  it. 
I  should  have  preferred  to  let  them  pass  a  bill  authorizing 
me  to  do  exactly  what  I  did  by  executive  order.  But  with- 
out exception  the  responsible  leaders  of  both  houses  as- 
sured me  that  it  was  out  of  the  question  to  prevent  any 
such  bill  from  being  so  amended  as  to  carry  some  fifty  mil- 
lions a  year  instead  of  the  five  million  which  will  actually 
be  carried  by  what  was  done. 

"I  found  that  President  Cleveland  had  established  the 
rule  that  a  man  who  was  seventy-five  years  old  should  be 
treated  as  by  that  fact  having  reached  the  stage  of  complete 
disability,  and  being  therefore  entitled  to  $12  a  month  pen- 


320  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

sion.  I  found  that  Pension  Commissioner  H.  Clay  Evans, 
under  President  McKinley,  had  established  the  age  of  sixty- 
five  as  similarly  entitling  a  veteran  to  six  dollars  a  month, 
on  the  ground  that  he  was  similarly  disabled  to  the  extent 
of  one-half  from  earning  his  living.  What  I  did  was  to  take 
these  two  rates  and  make  the  limit  sixty-two  and  seventy 
years  respectively,  instead  of  sixty-five  and  seventy-five, 
which  they  actually  were — treating  the  age  as  an  evidential 
fact — as  a  rebuttable  presumption  of  half  and  complete 
physical  disability.  Inasmuch  as  nearly  eighty  per  cent  of 
the  veterans  are  already  pensioned,  and  as  I  was  establish- 
ing not  $12  but  $6,  this  meant  an  increase  of  but  one-tenth 
of  what  the  proposed  Service  Pension  bill  would  have  cost. 
"So  much  for  the  technical  argument,  I  do  not,  how- 
ever, rest  the  case  on  this.  I  hold  that  the  ruling  was  abso- 
lutely right  and  proper.  Most  of  our  friends  who  live 
softly  do  not  understand  that  the  great  majority  of  people 
who  live  by  hard  manual  labor  have  begun  to  find  their 
wage-earning  capacity  seriously  impaired  by  the  time  they 
are  sixty.  The  man  of  sixty-two  has  on  the  average  great 
difficulty  in  getting  a  new  job  anywhere  if  he  is  dependent 
upon  the  labor  of  his  hands.  .  .  .  Now  the  average  wage 
worker  does  not  lay  by  enough  money  to  keep  him  in  his 
old  age,  and  when  he  has  fought  in  the  Civil  War  I  am  en- 
tirely willing  that  he  shall  be  cared  for  to  the  extent  indi- 
cated in  my  order. '  ' 

The  Eepublican  National  Convention  assembled  in  Chi- 
cago on  June  21, 1904,  and  on  the  following  day  the  country 
was  given  an  inspiring  illustration  of  the  Roosevelt  method 
of  diplomacy  in  the  protection  of  American  citizens  in  for- 
eign lands.  An  American  citizen,  Ion  H.  Perdicaris,  had 
been  seized  by  a  Moroccan  bandit  named  Raizuli,  and  held 
for  ransom.  To  all  demands  from  the  American  consul  for 
the  release  of  the  prisoner  Raizuli  replied  that  unless  the 
money  demanded  was  speedily  paid  he  would  kill  him.  On 
June  22,  Secretary  Hay,  after  consultation  with  the  Presi- 
dent, cabled  to  the  American  consul,  Mr.  Gummere:    "We 


NATIONAL  CONVENTION  AND  CAMPAIGN  OP  1904      321 

want  Perdicaris  alive  or  Eaizuli  dead,"  adding  that  Gum- 
mere  was  not  to  commit  the  American  Government  about 
landing  marines  or  seizing  the  custom  house  at  Tangier. 
This  cable  message  was  published  during  the  session  of  the 
convention  on  June  22,  and  the  effect  produced  was  thus 
described  by  the  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Tribune: 

"Perdicaris  alive  or  Eaizuli  dead"  went  through  the 
Convention  like  an  electric  thrill,  and  it  was  more  talked 
about  at  night  than  any  feature  of  the  day 's  work.  The  pre- 
vailing impression  was  that  if  Secretary  Hay  had  sent  the 
telegram  it  was  after  consultation  with  the  President,  and 
that  there  must  have  been  ample  justification. 

"It  is  pithy,  pungent  and  peremptory.  I  like  it,  and  so 
do  the  people,"  said  Senator  McComas,  of  Maryland. 

"It  is  the  kind  of  a  telegram,"  said  Senator  Spooner,  of 
Wisconsin,  "that  touches  a  popular  chord.  This  Govern- 
ment is  bound  to  protect  its  citizens  abroad  as  well  as  at 
home." 

"The  American  people  will  not  back  down  on  a  mes- 
sage of  that  kind,"  said  Eepresentative  Grosvenor,  of 
Ohio.  i '  It  may  not  be  exactly  in  diplomatic  words,  but  its 
meaning  is  unmistakable.  The  people  are  quick  to  respond 
when  their  patriotism  is  appealed  to.  The  Morocco  bandit 
will  find  that  there  is  a  united  sentiment  supporting  the 
President  and  Secretary  in  the  stand  they  have  taken." 

"It  was  good,  hot  stuff,  and  echoed  my  sentiments,"  said 
Congressman  Dwight,  of  New  York.  "The  people  want  an 
administration  that  will  stand  by  its  citizens,  even  if  it 
takes  a  fleet  to  do  it." 

* '  It  was  magnificent — magnificent ! ' '  said  Senator  Depew. 
"Every  right-minded  American  will  heartily  indorse  Mr. 
Hay's  strong  stand." 

"Do  I  like  it?"  exclaimed  W.  A.  Elstun,  of  Kansas,  one 
of  the  delegates.  "Bet  your  bottom  dollar  I  like  it.  Eoose- 
velt  is  behind  that  cable  message  to  that  fine  old  body- 
snatcher  Eaizuli.  Out  in  Kansas  we  believe  in  keeping  the 
peace  but  in  fighting  against  wrong.    Eoosevelt  and  Hay 


322  THEODOKE  KOOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

know  what  they  are  doing.    Our  people  like  courage.    We'll 
stand  for  anything  those  two  men  do." 

Three  entries  in  the  diary  of  Secretary  Hay,  made  at  the 
time,  reveal  the  result  of  the  peremptory  cable  message : 

June  23.  My  telegram  to  Gummere  had  an  uncalled-for 
success.  It  is  curious  how  a  concise  impropriety  hits  the 
public. 

June  24.  Gummere  telegraphs  that  he  expects  Perdi- 
caris  to-night. 

June  27.     Perdicaris  wires  his  thanks. 

On  the  following  day  Eoosevelt,  who  was  the  only  candi- 
date before  the  Convention,  was  nominated  by  acclamation, 
being  the  only  man  in  our  history,  who  had  acceded  to  the 
Presidency  through  the  death  of  the  incumbent,  to  be  so 
honored. 

Writing  to  Eoosevelt  from  Clinton,  N.  Y.,  under  date  of 
July  12, 1904,  Elihu  Eoot,  who  as  Secretary  of  War  during 
the  three  years  that  Eoosevelt  had  been  President  had  inti- 
mate personal  knowledge  of  his  conduct  of  the  office,  said : 

"I  haven't  congratulated  you  on  your  nomination.  I  felt 
as  if  it  would  be  a  foolish  formality.  There  are,  however, 
some  features  of  it  that  are  very  gratifying. 

"1.  This  is  the  first  time  that  any  party  has  nominated 
to  succeed  himself  a  Vice  President  who  had  become  Presi- 
dent. 

"2.  This  is  the  first  time  that  the  Eepublican  party  ever 
nominated  for  President  a  citizen  of  the  State  of  New 
York. 

"3.  It  was  a  People's  nomination  and  not  a  managers'. 
Every  attempt  at  bargain  or  deal  or  combination  was  the 
other  way  and  failed. 

"4.  The  opposition  has  passed  over  every  man  who  has 
made  a  record  against  your  policy  or  action  and  has  nomi- 
nated a  man  who  never  opened  his  mouth  on  any  national 
question. 

"No  one  who  has  antagonized  or  criticized  your  admin- 


NATIONAL  CONVENTION  AND  CAMPAIGN  OF  1904      323 

istration  lias  made  sufficient  effect  on  the  public  mind  to 
establish  any  claim  to  the  Democratic  nomination. 

"I  have  no  doubt  about  the  election,  but  however  that 
results  you  have  made  a  success  and  it  cannot  be  wiped 
off  the  book.  And  you  have  done  it  yourself.  Others  have 
helped  you,  but  your  personality  has  been  the  Adminis- 
tration.,, 

From  the  moment  of  his  nomination  till  election  day  in 
November  the  Republican  canvass  was  conducted  on  Roose- 
velt's acts  in  office  and  on  the  principles  upon  which  those 
acts  were  based.  He  was  formally  notified  of  his  nomina- 
tion on  July  27,  1904,  and  in  a  brief  speech  of  acceptance 
he  reviewed  the  most  conspicuous  acts  of  his  administra- 
tion, giving  this  emphatic  and  uncompromising  statement 
of  his  position  on  the  questions  of  corporations  and  labor : 

"We  recognize  the  organization  of  capital  and  the  organ- 
ization of  labor  as  natural  outcomes  of  our  industrial  sys- 
tem. Each  kind  of  organization  is  to  be  favored  so  long 
as  it  acts  in  a  spirit  of  justice  and  of  regard  for  the  rights 
of  others.  Each  is  to  be  granted  the  full  protection  of  the 
law,  and  each  in  turn  is  to  be  held  to  a  strict  obedience  to 
the  law ;  for  no  man  is  above  it  and  no  man  below  it.  The 
humblest  individual  is  to  have  his  rights  safeguarded  as 
scrupulously  as  those  of  the  strongest  organization,  for 
each  is  to  receive  justice,  no  more  and  no  less.  The  prob- 
lems with  which  we  have  to  deal  in  our  modern  industrial 
and  social  life  are  manifold;  but  the  spirit  in  which  it  is 
necessary  to  approach  their  solution  is  simply  the  spirit  of 
honesty,  of  courage,  and  of  common-sense.,, 

His  formal  letter  of  acceptance  was  published  on  Septem- 
ber 12,  1904,  and  became  at  once  the  text  book  and  chief 
source  of  inspiration  of  his  party  in  the  canvass.  In  it  he 
passed  in  review  all  the  acts  of  his  administration  which 
had  been  most  severely  criticized,  including  the  Northern 
Securities  suit,  the  Anthracite  Coal  Strike  settlement,  and 
the  possession  of  the  Isthmus  for  the  Panama  Canal,  and 


324  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

challenged  the  Democrats  to  join  issue  on  them  before  the 
people.  The  challenge  was  never  met.  Although  it  had 
been  the  expectation  of  the  Republican  managers  that  these 
three  acts  would  be  the  chief  issues  of  the  campaign,  the 
Democratic  managers  sedulously  avoided  them,  thereby 
making  confession  that  popular  support  had  been  won  for 
them  by  the  President. 

Early  in  the  campaign,  a  few  weeks  after  Judge  Alton 
B.  Parker  had  been  nominated  as  the  Democratic  candidate 
and  had  set  forth  his  views  and  principles,  a  temporary 
alarm  was  caused  in  the  Eepublican  camp  by  the  sudden  and 
entirely  unexpected  declaration  of  the  New  York  Sun  on 
August  11,  1904,  that  it  was  in  favor  of  Roosevelt  in  pref- 
erence to  Parker.  As  that  journal  had  been  the  most  ven- 
omous of  all  the  President's  critics  in  condemning  his 
course  toward  corporations  and  trusts,  the  Republican 
managers  were  alarmed  lest  its  sudden  "flop"  might  give 
the  impression  that  a  compromise  of  some  sort  had  been 
arranged  through  which  the  support  of  the  "  Wall-Street 
crowd' '  had  been  secured  for  Roosevelt.  The  manner  of 
the  Sum's  declaration  gave  a  semblance  of  color  to  this 
possible  view,  for  it  read : 

"As  the  case  is  now  made  up,  we  prefer  the  impulsive 
candidate  of  the  party  of  conservatism  to  the  mildly  con- 
servative, temporizing  opportunist  representative  of  the 
Hun  vote  in  the  background.  We  have  more  faith  in  the 
distinct  promises  of  the  Chicago  platform,  not  ignoring  the 
many  serious  defects  of  that  document,  than  we  have  in 
the  miserable  hell  broth  of  disaster  and  dynamite  concocted 
at  St.  Louis  a  month  ago  by  a  party  afraid  to  renounce  its 
criminal  follies,  and  tasted  yesterday  at  Esopus  by  a  re- 
spectable candidate,  who  declares  with  gusto  that  its  flavor 
is  admirable.' ' 

On  the  date  on  which  the  Sun  article  appeared  the  Presi- 
dent wrote  to  Mr.  Cortelyou,  chairman  of  the  Republican 
National  Committee : 

"I  know  the  stress  you  are  under,  but  as  regards  this 


NATIONAL  CONVENTION  AND  CAMPAIGN  OF  1904      325 

Northern  Securities  business  no  stress  must  make  us  go 
one  hand's  breadth  out  of  our  path.  I  should  hate  to  be 
beaten  in  this  contest ;  but  I  should  not  merely  hate,  I  should 
not  be  able  to  bear  being  beaten  under  circumstances  which 
implied  ignominy.  To  give  any  color  for  misrepresentation 
to  the  effect  that  we  were  now  weakening  in  the  Northern 
Securities  matter  would  be  ruinous.  The  Northern  Secur- 
ities suit  is  one  of  the  great  achievements  of  my  adminis- 
tration. I  look  back  upon  it  with  great  pride,  for  through 
it  we  emphasize  in  signal  fashion,  as  in  no  other  way  could 
be  emphasized,  the  fact  that  the  most  powerful  men  in  this 
country  were  held  to  accountability  before  the  law.  Now 
we  must  not  spoil  the  effect  of  this  lesson." 

To  this  letter  Mr.  Cortelyou  replied  at  once  in  a  letter 
in  which  he  said : 

"I  have  your  letter  of  August  11  about  the  Northern 
Securities  matter.  If  I  did  not  know  you  as  well  as  I  do 
I  should  resent  your  sending  me  such  a  communication. 
Whatever  may  be  my  shortcomings — and  they  are  many — 
I  think  I  have  a  fair  degree  of  moral  fiber,  certainly  enough 
to  measure  up  to  the  requirements  of  this  Northern  Se- 
curities case.  I  am  conducting  this  campaign  for  your  re- 
election on  as  high  a  plane  as  you  have  conducted  the  af- 
fairs of  your  great  office.  It  is  not  likely  that  one  who  has 
been  so  intimately  associated  with  you,  or  who  has  so  much 
at  heart  your  welfare  and  success,  would  permit  any  con- 
sideration whatever  to  weaken  the  force  and  effect  of  the 
splendid  achievements  of  your  administration. ' ' 

As  I  have  mentioned,  Boosevelt's  formal  letter  of  accep- 
tance was  published  on  September  12, 1904,  and  on  the  same 
date  the  election  in  Maine  resulted  in  favor  of  the  Kepubli- 
cans.  Secretary  Hay  expressed  his  keen  pleasure  in  regard 
to  the  two  events  in  a  joyful  letter  from  his  summer  resi- 
dence in  Newbury,  N.  H.,  on  September  13,  1904 : 

1 *  Well,  my  dear  Theodore,  you  had  two  glorious  victories 
yesterday.    Your  letter  had  been  getting  better  and  better 


326  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

since  I  saw  it,  and  it  is  now  what  they  call  a  whirlwind 
campaign  in  itself.  It  is  magnificent — not  only  in  sub- 
stance bnt  in  tone  and  temper.  It  has  the  unmistakable 
air  of  a  winner, — the  force  as  well  as  the  reserve  authority. 
"And  Maine — we  have  heard  how  she  went. 

She  went,  by  gob, 
For  Governor  Cobb, 
And  Roosevelt  and 
Fairbanks  too. 

"I  judge  from  the  tone  of  our  friends  the  enemy  that 
they  are  losing  all  heart  and  hope.  I  am  getting  sorry  for 
Parker ;  they  will  turn  and  rend  him  before  long.  I  do  not 
doubt  he  already  wishes  that  comfortable  judgeship  back 
again. 

"  Everything  they  do  is  ridiculous.  But  their  rally  in 
defense  of  the  Constitution  is  most  absurd  of  all.  One  of 
these  days  they  will  be  saying  it  is  unconstitutional  to  read 
the  Constitution." 


Roosevelt's  views  on  the  art  of  painting  were  set  forth 
in  a  letter  to  P.  Marcius  Simons,  an  American  artist  whose 
works  he  greatly  admired,  three  specimens  of  which  hang  in 
prominent  positions  in  his  Trophy  Room  at  Oyster  Bay. 
Writing  to  Mr.  Simons,  on  March  19,  1904,  he  said : 

"Your  letter  pleased  and  interested  me  much.  The  first 
work  I  saw  of  yours  was  the  '  Seats  of  the  Mighty/  and  it 
impressed  me  so  powerfully  that  I  have  ever  since  eagerly 
sought  out  any  of  your  pictures  of  which  I  heard.  When 
I  became  President,  Mrs.  Roosevelt  and  I  made  up  our 
minds  that  while  I  was  President  we  would  indulge  our- 
selves in  the  purchase  of  one  really  first-class  piece  of 
American  art — for  we  are  people  whom  the  respective  sizes 
of  our  family  and  our  income  have  never  warranted  in 
making  such  a  purchase  while  I  was  in  private  life!  As 
soon  as  we  saw  'When  Light  and  Shadow  Meet'  we  made 
up  our  minds  at  once  and  without  speaking  to  one  another 
that  at  last  we  had  seen  the  very  thing  we  wanted. 


NATIONAL  CONVENTION  AND  CAMPAIGN  OF  1904      327 

"Mrs.  Eoosevelt  and  I  feel  that  in  your  letter  you  have 
expressed  much  which  we  have  felt  but  not  formulated.  I 
agree  absolutely  with  you  that  art,  or  at  least  the  art  for 
which  I  care,  must  present  the  ideal  through  the  tempera- 
ment and  the  interpretation  of  the  painter.  I  do  not  greatly 
care  for  the  reproduction  of  landscapes  which,  in  effect,  I 
see  whenever  I  ride  or  walk.  I  wish  '  the  light  that  never 
was  on  land  or  sea'  in  the  pictures  that  I  am  to  live  with — 
and  this  light  your  paintings  have.  When  I  look  at  them 
I  feel  a  lift  in  my  soul ;  I  feel  my  imagination  stirred.  And 
so,  dear  Mr.  Simons,  I  believe  in  you  as  an  artist  and  I  am 
proud  of  you  as  an  American. ' ' 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

ATTITUDE   TOWARD   CAMPAIGN   CONTRIBUTIONS- 
JUDGE  PARKER'S  CHARGES 

A  letter  which  throws  interesting  light  upon  the  attitude 
of  the  President  and  Mr.  Cortelyou  toward  campaign  con- 
tributions was  the  following  from  the  President  to  Dr. 
Lyman  Abbott  on  October  7,  1904: 

"A  week  ago  this  Monday  Cortelyou  was  on  here,  and 
he  then  said  to  me  that  if  I  was  elected  I  would  be  elected 
without  a  promise  or  pledge  of  any  kind,  express  or  im- 
plied, to  any  corporation  or  individual.  He  told  me  of  two 
or  three  amusing  instances  of  efforts  to  get  some  kind  of 
assurance  from  him,  to  which  his  invariable  answer  was 
that  they  could  count  upon  just  treatment — upon  my  doing 
nothing  that  I  did  not  regard  as  fair  and  right;  but  that 
there  must  be  no  misapprehension  as  to  my  purpose  to  go 
steadily  forward  along  the  lines  which  had  marked  our 
course  for  the  last  three  years.  Then  a  concrete  instance 
came  up  of  the  way  in  which  he  was  handling  things.  You 
may  have  noticed  that  I  had  to  decide  the  Customs  Stamp 
Cigar  question.  After  careful  consideration  I  found  that 
my  decision  had  to  be  against  the  so-called  Tobacco  Trust, 
and  in  favor  of  the  Independent  Tobacco  Manufacturers. 

* 1  Cortelyou  had  hoped  that  I  would  not  have  to  make  the 
decision,  as  from  the  political  standpoint  at  this  stage  of 
the  campaign,  it  was  sure  to  cause  irritation  whichever  way 
it  went.  I  told  him,  however,  that  I  had  looked  into  the 
matter  very  carefully,  and  had  gone  over  it  with  Taft  and 
Moody,  and  we  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  there  was 
but  one  way  we  could  decide  and  that  was  in  favor  of  the 
Independent  Tobacco  men.  He  said  very  well;  that  he 
wished  to  know  at  once,  because  under  such  circumstances 

328 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  CAMPAIGN  CONTRIBUTIONS     329 

he  could  not  accept  any  contribution  from  the  Independent 
Tobacco  men,  for  we  must  not  be  put  in  a  position  where 
it  could  be  falsely  alleged  that  we  got  any  quid  pro  quo  for 
such  a  decision. 

"It  seemed  to  me  that  this  action  of  his  emphasized  the 
distinction  between  the  campaign  he  was  running  and  the 
campaign  most  others  had  run  in  like  circumstances." 

Most  illuminating  of  all  are  these  two  letters  from  the 
President  to  Mr.  Cortelyou,  written  near  the  close  of  the 
campaign : 

"I  have  just  been  informed  that  the  Standard  Oil  people 
have  contributed  $100,000  to  our  campaign  fund.  This  may 
be  entirely  untrue.  But  if  true  I  must  ask  you  to  direct 
that  the  money  be  returned  to  them  forthwith.  I  appre- 
ciate to  the  full  the  need  of  funds  to  pay  the  legitimate  and 
necessarily  great  expenses  of  the  campaign.  I  appreciate 
to  the  full  the  fact  that  under  no  circumstances  will  we  re- 
ceive half  as  much  as  was  received  by  the  National  Com- 
mittee in  1900  and  1896.  Moreover,  it  is  entirely  legitimate 
to  accept  contributions,  no  matter  how  large  they  are,  from 
individuals  and  corporations  on  the  terms  on  which  I  hap- 
pen to  know  that  you  have  accepted  them,  that  is,  with  the 
explicit  understanding  that  they  were  given  and  received 
with  no  thought  of  any  more  obligation  on  the  part  of  the 
National  Committee  or  of  the  national  administration  than 
is  implied  in  the  statement  that  every  man  shall  receive  a 
square  deal,  no  more  and  no  less,  and  that  this  I  shall  guar- 
antee him  in  any  event  to  the  best  of  my  ability. 

"The  big  business  corporations  have  a  tremendous  stake 
in  the  welfare  of  this  country.  They  know  that  this  wel- 
fare can  only  be  secured  through  the  continuance  in  power 
of  the  Republican  party ;  and  if  they  subscribe  for  the  pur- 
pose of  securing  such  national  welfare,  and  with  no  thought 
of  personal  favors  to  them,  why  they  are  acting  as  is  en- 
tirely proper;  but  we  cannot  under  any  circumstances  af- 
ford to  take  a  contribution  which  can  be  even  improperly 
construed  as  putting  us  under  an  improper  obligation,  and 


330  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

in  view  of  my  past  relations  with  the  Standard  Oil  Com- 
pany I  fear  that  such  a  construction  will  be  put  upon  re- 
ceiving any  aid  from  them.  In  returning  the  money  to  them 
I  wish  it  made  clear  to  them  that  there  is  not  the  slightest 
personal  feeling  against  them,  and  that  they  can  count  upon 
being  treated  exactly  as  well  by  the  administration,  exactly 
as  fairly,  as  if  we  had  accepted  the  contribution.  They 
shall  not  suffer  in  any  way  because  we  refused  it,  just  as 
they  would  not  have  gained  in  any  way  if  we  had  accepted 
it.  But  I  am  not  willing  that  it  should  be  accepted,  and 
must  ask  that  you  tell  Mr.  Bliss  to  return  it." 

October  27,  1904. 

"As  supplemental  to  my  letter  of  yesterday,  containing 
my  request  that  any  contribution  which  the  Standard  Oil 
people  may  have  made  to  the  campaign  be  immediately  re- 
turned, I  wish  to  add  that  my  judgment  as  to  the  propriety 
of  this  action  is  confirmed  because  of  the  fact  brought  into 
especial  prominence  by  the  Standard  Oil  Company's  publi- 
cation in  the  newspapers  (which  I  saw  after  my  letter  was 
written  and  sent)  that  much  importance  seems  to  be  at- 
tached to  the  political  attitude  of  this  company.  Further- 
more, in  view  of  the  open  and  pronounced  opposition  of  the 
Standard  Oil  Company  to  the  establishment  of  the  Bureau 
of  Corporations,  one  of  the  most  important  accomplish- 
ments of  my  administration,  I  do  not  feel  willing  to  accept 
its  aid.  I  request,  therefore,  that  the  contribution  be  re- 
turned without  further  delay. 

"Of  course  I  do  not  wish  any  public  statement  made 
about  this  matter,  nor  to  take  any  step  that  will  seem  as  if 
I  were  casting  any  reflection  upon  the  Standard  Oil  people 
or  their  motives  in  making  the  contribution. ' ' 

Eoosevelt  supposed  that  his  wishes  in  regard  to  any 
contribution  which  the  Standard  Oil  Company  might  have 
made  had  been  complied  with  by  the  National  Committee, 
and  it  was  not  until  four  years  later  (September,  1908) 
that  he  learned  the  truth  about  the  matter.  It  was  then 
made  known  to  him  that  no  contribution  had  been  made 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  CAMPAIGN  CONTRIBUTIONS     331 

by  the  company  or  in  its  behalf  but  that  H.  H.  Eogers  had 
contributed  $100,000,  and  had  made  it  as  his  personal  con- 
tribution ;  that  the  treasurer  of  the  Committee,  not  wishing 
to  offend  him  by  refusing  it,  had  not  sent  it  back,  and  had 
not  informed  Mr.  Roosevelt  of  his  action  in  regard  to  it. 
(See  Chapter  IX,  Vol.  II.) 

A  glimpse  at  the  humorous  aspects  of  the  campaign  is 
given  in  this  letter  from  the  President  to  Secretary  Hay 
on  August  12,  1904: 

"Some  of  the  developments  of  this  campaign  are  too 
deliciously  funny  for  anything.  A  couple  of  deliciously 
unconscious  portrayals  of  this  state  of  things  were  recent- 
ly furnished  me,  one  by  B.,  an  ex-Congressman,  a  Grold 
Democrat  of  Indiana,  and  the  other  by  D.,  the  Republican 
sub-boss  from  Brooklyn.  B.  came  to  me  out  of  the  kindness 
of  his  heart,  to  reassure  me,  and  said  in  entire  good  faith : 
'Mr.  President,  Taggart  is  not  nearly  so  formidable  as 
these  men  think ;  for  aside  from  the  money  he  has  obtained 
from  his  gambling  houses,  most  of  his  fortune  has  come 
from  moneys  he  has  received  for  running  campaigns,  which 
he  has  kept  for  his  own  purposes.  He  is  a  very  expensive 
campaign  manager,  and  always  keeps  for  himself  a  large 
proportion  of  the  funds  placed  in  his  hands.  I  think  this 
will  offset  the  fact  that  he  will  probably  get  much  more 
money  this  year  than  the  Democrats  have  obtained  for  a 
long  time.' 

' '  D.  called  me  aside,  and  in  great  secrecy  told  me  as  fol- 
lows: 'On  Monday  night  Tim  Sullivan  (Dry  Dollar  Sulli- 
van, a  Tammany  leader  who  has  always  been  fond  of  me, 
partly  because  of  kindred  tastes  in  the  matter  of  prize 
fights)  came  to  my  house  and  said  that  I  was  to  tell  you, 
when  I  came  to  Washington,  from  him,  that  you  need  not 
be  at  all  alarmed  about  New  York  because  he  was  going 
to  do  his  best  to  see  to  it  that  Tammany  men  were  instructed 
none  of  them  to  commit  any  offense  which  would  expose 
them  to  being  put  in  the  penitentiary  in  the  interest  of 
Parker's  success. '  Not  only  Sullivan  but  D.  regarded  this 
as  being  symptomatic  of  a  great  breakdown  in  the  Tarn- 


332  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

many  vote,  and  as  being  equivalent  on  the  part  of  Sullivan 
to  practically  bolting  Tammany  in  my  interest." 

Throughout  the  campaign  the  President  had  studiously 
refrained  from  making  up  his  mind  as  to  what  the  outcome 
was  to  be.  In  July  he  wrote  to  Henry  White  in  London: 
"  As  to  what  the  result  will  be,  I  have  not  the  slightest  idea. 
I  have  long  given  up  prophesying  about  the  outcome  of  a 
political  contest,  especially  one  in  which  one  sees  almost 
exclusively  the  people  who  are  friendly  and  zealous  parti- 
sans ;  and  accordingly  all  that  is  heard  is  favorable. ' ' 

To  Rudyard  Kipling  he  wrote  on  November  1,  1904 : 
"We  are  now  closing  the  campaign,  and  the  Lord  only 
knows  how  it  will  go.  I  have  done  a  good  many  things  in 
the  past  three  years,  and  the  fact  that  I  did  them  is  doubt- 
less due  partly  to  accident  and  partly  to  temperament. 
Naturally,  I  think  I  was  right  in  doing  them,  for  otherwise 
I  would  not  have  done  them.  It  is  equally  natural  that 
some  people  should  have  been  alienated  by  each  thing  I  did, 
and  the  aggregate  of  all  that  have  been  alienated  may  be 
more  than  sufficient  to  overthrow  me.  Thus,  in  dealing 
with  the  Philippines,  I  have  first  the  jack  fools  who  seri- 
ously think  that  any  group  of  pirates  and  head-hunters 
needs  nothing  but  independence  in  order  that  it  may  be 
turned  forthwith  into  a  dark-hued  New  England  town  meet- 
ing; and  then  the  entirely  practical  creatures  who  join  with 
these  extremists  because  I  do  not  intend  that  the  Islands 
shall  be  exploited  for  corrupt  purposes. 

1  '  So  in  Panama,  I  have  to  encounter  the  opposition  of  the 
vague  individuals  of  serious  minds  and  limited  imagina- 
tions who  think  that  a  corrupt  pithecoid  community  in 
which  the  President  has  obtained  his  position  by  the  simple 
process  of  clapping  the  former  President  into  a  wooden 
cage  and  sending  him  on  an  ox-cart  over  the  mountains 
(this  is  literally  what  was  done  at  Bogota) — is  entitled  to 
just  the  treatment  that  I  would  give,  say,  to  Denmark  or 
Switzerland.  Then,  in  addition,  I  have  the  representatives 
of  the  transcontinental  railways,  who  are  under  no  delu- 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  CAMPAIGN  CONTRIBUTIONS     333 

sion,  but  who  do  not  want  a  competing  canal.  In  the  same 
way  I  have  alienated  some  of  the  big  representatives  of 
what  we  call  the  trusts,  and  have  had  a  muss  with  the 
trades  unions  on  the  other  side. 

i 1  So  only  a  merciful  Providence  can  tell  what  the  outcome 
will  be.  If  elected  I  shall  be  very  glad.  If  beaten  I  shall 
be  sorry ;  but  in  any  event  I  have  had  a  first  class  run  for 
my  money,  and  I  have  accomplished  certain  definite  things. 
I  would  consider  myself  a  hundred  times  over  repaid  if  I 
had  nothing  more  to  my  credit  than  Panama  and  the  coal- 
ing stations  in  Cuba.  So  you  see  that  my  frame  of  mind 
is  a  good  deal  like  that  of  your  old  Viceroy  when  he  ad- 
dressed the  new  Viceroy. ' ' 

In  the  closing  days  of  the  campaign  Alton  B.  Parker,  the 
Democratic  candidate  for  President,  made  several  speeches 
in  which  he  charged  that  Mr.  Cortelyou  had  been  using  the 
knowledge  that  he  had  gained  as  Secretary  of  Commerce 
and  Labor  to  extort  money  from  the  corporations  as  con- 
tributions to  the  Republican  campaign  fund.  The  charges, 
uttered  cautiously  at  first  by  Judge  Parker,  were  gradually 
made  more  direct  by  him  until  they  amounted  to  assertions 
that  a  conspiracy  had  been  formed  by  the  President  and 
Mr.  Cortelyou,  the  President  having  made  him  chairman 
for  the  purpose,  to  levy  this  blackmail,  promising  in  return 
certain  immunities  or  favors  to  the  contributors  after  elec- 
tion. The  President  waited  till  the  charges  assumed  the 
form  of  direct  assertions,  when,  "lest  the  silence  of  self- 
respect  be  misunderstood,"  he  spoke  and  in  no  uncertain 
tones,  his  declaration  appearing  in  the  press  of  the  country 
on  the  morning  of  November  5,  1904,  three  days  before 
election.  In  it,  characterizing  the  charges  as  "  slanderous 
accusations,' '  he  said: 

"Mr.  Parker's  accusations  against  Mr.  Cortelyou  and 
me  are  monstrous.  If  true  they  would  brand  both  of  us 
forever  with  infamy ;  and  inasmuch  as  they  are  false,  heavy 
must  be  the  condemnation  of  the  man  making  them. 

"The  assertion  that  Mr.  Cortelyou  had  any  knowledge, 


334  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

gained  while  in  an  official  position,  whereby  he  was  enabled 
to  secure  and  did  secure  any  contributions  from  any  corpo- 
ration, is  a  falsehood.  The  assertion  that  there  has  been 
any  blackmail,  direct  or  indirect,  by  Mr.  Cortelyou  or  by 
me,  is  a  falsehood.  The  assertion  that  there  has  been  made 
in  my  behalf  and  by  my  authority,  by  Mr.  Cortelyou  or  by 
any  one  else,  any  pledge  or  promise,  or  that  there  has  been 
any  understanding  as  to  future  immunities  or  benefits,  in 
recognition  of  any  contributions  from  any  source,  is  a 
wicked  falsehood. 

"The  statements  made  by  Mr:  Parker  are  unqualifiedly 
and  atrociously  false.  As  Mr.  Cortelyou  has  said  to  me 
more  than  once  during  the  campaign,  if  elected  I  shall  go 
into  the  Presidency  unhampered  by  any  pledge,  promise  or 
understanding  of  any  kind,  sort  or  description,  save  my 
promise,  made  openly  to  the  American  people,  that  so  far 
as  in  my  power  lies  I  shall  see  to  it  that  every  man  has 
a  square  deal,  no  less  and  no  more.,, 

The  Presidents  vigorous  utterance  met  with  general  and 
hearty  approval,  for  Judge  Parker's  astounding  conduct  in 
virtually  calling  the  President  of  the  United  States  a  con- 
spirator and  blackmailer  had  aroused  the  indignation  of 
decent  men  of  all  parties.  It  was  an  act  of  incredible  politi- 
cal folly,  reflecting  not  only  upon  its  author's  ideas  of  pro- 
priety, but  upon  his  intelligence.  No  man  who  rightly  un- 
derstood the  character  of  the  American  people  would  be 
capable  of  such  a  blunder.  The  election  returns  showed 
unmistakably  the  faith  that  the  people  had  in  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  for  they  gave  him  the  largest  vote  in  the  elec- 
toral college  and  the  largest  popular  majority  that  any  can- 
didate had  received. 

On  the  night  of  election,  as  soon  as  the  result  was  known, 
he  wrote  and  gave  out  for  publication  the  following: 

"A  wise  custom  which  limits  the  President  to  two  terms 
regards  the  substance  and  not  the  form,  and  under  no  cir- 
cumstances will  I  be  a  candidate  for  or  accept  another 
nomination. ' ' 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  CAMPAIGN  CONTRIBUTIONS     335 

Writing,  on  November  10,  1904,  to  his  son,  Kermit,  who 
was  in  school  at  Groton,  Mass.,  he  gave  this  interesting  ac- 
count of  the  scene  in  the  White  House  on  election  night : 

"I  am  stunned  by  the  overwhelming  victory  we  have 
won.  I  had  no  conception  that  such  a  thing  was  possible. 
I  thought  it  probable  we  should  win,  but  was  quite  pre- 
pared to  be  defeated,  and  of  course  had  not  the  slightest 
idea  that  there  was  such  a  tidal  wave.  We  carried  not  only 
all  the  States  I  put  down  in  my  letter  to  you  as  probably 
Kepublican,  but  all  those  that  I  put  down  as  doubtful,  and 
all  but  one  of  those  that  I  put  down  as  probably  Demo- 
cratic. The  only  States  that  went  against  me  were  those 
in  which  no  free  discussion  is  allowed  and  in  which  fraud 
and  violence  have  rendered  the  voting  a  farce.  I  have  the 
greatest  popular  majority  and  the  greatest  electoral  ma- 
jority ever  given  to  a  candidate  for  President. 

"On  the  evening  of  the  election  I  got  back  from  Oyster 
Bay,  where  I  had  voted,  soon  after  half -past  six.  At  that 
time  I  knew  nothing  of  the  returns  and  did  not  expect  to 
find  out  anything  definite  for  two  or  three  hours,  and  had 
been  endeavoring  not  to  think  of  the  result,  but  to  school 
myself  to  accept  it  as  a  man  ought  to,  whichever  way  it 
went.  But  as  soon  as  I  got  in  the  White  House  Ted  met 
me  with  the  news  that  Buffalo  and  Eochester  had  sent  in 
their  returns  already  and  that  they  showed  enormous  gains 
for  me.  Within  the  next  twenty  minutes  enough  returns 
were  received  from  precincts  and  districts  in  Chicago,  Con- 
necticut, New  York  and  Massachusetts  to  make  it  evident 
that  there  was  a  tremendous  drift  my  way,  and  by  the  time 
we  sat  down  to  dinner  at  half -past  seven  my  election  was 
assured.  Mrs.  Cortelyou  was  with  us  for  dinner,  just  as 
interested  and  excited  as  we  were. 

' '  Eight  after  dinner  members  of  the  Cabinet  and  friends 
began  to  come  in,  and  we  had  a  celebration  that  would  have 
been  perfect  if  only  you  had  been  present.  Archie,  fairly 
plastered  with  badges,  was  acting  as  messenger  between 
the  telegraph  operators  and  me,  and  bringing  me  continual- 
ly telegram  after  telegram,  which  I  read  aloud.    I  longed 


336  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

for  you  very  much,  as  all  of  us  did,  for  of  course  this  was 
the  day  of  greatest  triumph  I  ever  had  had  or  ever  could 
have,  and  I  was  very  proud  and  happy.  But  I  tell  you, 
Kermit,  it  was  a  great  comfort  to  feel,  all  during  the  last 
days  when  affairs  looked  doubtful,  that  no  matter  how 
things  came  out  the  really  important  thing  was  the  lovely 
life  I  have  with  Mother  and  with  you  children,  and  that 
compared  to  this  home  life  everything  else  was  of  very 
small  importance  from  the  standpoint  of  happiness." 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 
VISIT  OF  JOHN  MORLEY  AT  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

Two  days  after  the  election  in  1904,  John  Morley,  now  Lord 
Morley,  the  distinguished  English  essayist  and  author,  paid 
a  visit  of  several  days  to  President  Eoosevelt  in  the  White 
House.  When  Mr.  Morley 's  'Life  of  Gladstone'  appeared 
about  a  year  earlier,  the  President  had  written  to  him  the 
letter  of  warm  appreciation  quoted  in  Chapter  XXIII,  and 
a  cordial  correspondence  had  ensued.  When  the  date  of 
the  visit  had  been  fixed,  the  President  did  me  the  very  great 
and  agreeable  honor  of  inviting  me  as  a  fellow  guest.  Sub- 
sequently I  put  in  writing  an  account  of  some  of  the  inci- 
dents of  this  most  interesting  and  memorable  visit,  which 
I  submitted  to  the  President  and  obtained  from  him  per- 
mission to  include  in  my  record  of  his  life.  I  may,  there- 
fore, without  impropriety,  reproduce  portions  of  it  here, 
especially  since  they  are  of  value  in  throwing  ligfit  upon 
his  personality  in  much  the  same  way  that  his  letters  do. 

Mr.  Morley  and  I  arrived  together  on  the  afternoon  of 
Thursday,  November  10,  and  found  the  President  in  the 
highest  health  and  spirits,  fairly  overflowing  with  joy  be- 
cause of  his  great  triumph. 

From  the  first  the  President  greatly  interested  Mr.  Mor- 
ley. The  two  men  had  much  in  common  intellectually.  Both 
had  been  wide  readers  and  writers  of  history,  and  close 
students  of  men  and  affairs.  Each  had  written  a  life  of 
Cromwell.  The  President's  talk,  frank,  vigorous,  and  mar- 
velous in  its  range  over  human  history,  ancient,  modern, 
and  contemporaneous,  as  it  always  was  when  he  had  a  sym- 
pathetic and  understanding  listener,  was  a  revelation  to 
Mr.  Morley,  who  said  to  me  later  that  he  had  never  heard 
anything  like  it.    He  spoke  of  it  frequently  when  we  were 

337 


338  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

alone  together,  saying  repeatedly :  ' '  He  is  a  most  extraor- 
dinary man ! ' ' 

On  the  morning  of  the  second  day  of  our  visit,  when  the 
President  left  us  to  go  to  his  office,  Mr.  Morley  asked  me 
to  show  him  the  rooms  on  the  first  floor  of  the  White  House. 
I  took  him  through  the  Red  Room,  the  Green  Room,  and 
the  Blue  Room  into  the  large  East  Room.  As  we  stood  in 
the  center  of  it  and  I  had  given  a  brief  history  of  it,  he 
turned  to  me  and,  putting  his  hand  on  my  shoulder,  said : 
"My  dear  fellow,  do  you  know  the  two  most  extraordinary 
things  I  have  seen  in  your  country?  Niagara  Falls  and  the 
President  of  the  United  States — both  great  wonders  of 
nature ! ' '  Later  in  the  day  I  repeated  this  remark  to  the 
President,  and  also  to  Secretary  Hay  and  Secretary  Taft, 
all  of  whom,  the  President  no  less  than  his  two  associates, 
enjoyed  it  greatly.  Secretary  Hay  recorded  it  in  his  diary 
in  incomplete  form,  and  it  is  so  published  in  Mr.  W.  R. 
Thayer's  life  of  him. 

Each  day,  after  the  President  had  left  us  to  attend  to  his 
duties,  Mr.  Morley  and  I  went  to  the  library  in  the  White 
House,  where,  in  frank  and  intimate  conversation,  Mr. 
Morley  asked  me  to  explain  such  of  the  allusions  to  Ameri- 
can political  methods  made  by  the  President  as  he  had  not 
fully  understood.  There  were  many  such  allusions.  I  re- 
call one  in  particular.  In  describing  the  elements  in  poli- 
tics that  had  from  time  to  time  antagonized  him,  the  Presi- 
dent said:  "By  all  odds  the  most  contemptible  creature 
we  have  encountered  in  our  politics  is  the  Goo  Goo."  Mr. 
Morley,  in  obvious  perplexity,  exclaimed :  ' '  The  Goo  Goo  f 
Really,  Mr.  President,  I  don't  understand  you."  He  was 
much  amused  on  learning  that  the  species  referred  to  was 
human  and  living  and  not  extinct  like  the  Dodo. 

I  turned  the  conversation  on  one  occasion  to  French  his- 
tory and  politics,  on  which  I  knew  Mr.  Morley  to  be  a  high 
authority,  and  we  spoke  at  some  length  of  Napoleon.  In 
the  course  of  our  talk  Mr.  Morley  said :  ' '  This  man  whose 
guests  we  are  has  many  of  Napoleon's  qualities — indom- 
itable   courage,  tireless  perseverance,  great  capacity  for 


VISIT  OP  JOHN  MORLEY  AT  THE  WHITE  HOUSE      339 

leadership — and  one  thing  that  Napoleon  never  had — high 
moral  purpose !  And  think  what  it  would  have  meant  for 
the  world  if  he  had  had  that ! ' '  I  quote  from  memory  and 
am  not  sure  of  the  exact  phraseology,  but  the  sense  is  as  I 
have  expressed  it.  Taken  with  the  first  remark  about 
Roosevelt,  this  second  one  is  essential  to  give  accurately 
the  estimate  which  Mr.  Morley  made  of  Boosevelt's  char- 
acter. 

The  physical  vigor  of  the  President  impressed  Mr.  Mor- 
ley no  less  than  his  intellectual  activity,  being  himself  a 
frail  man  in  rather  delicate  health.  At  dinner  one  evening 
the  President  had  a  number  of  prominent  labor  leaders  to 
meet  Mr.  Morley,  who  was  desirous  of  obtaining  informa- 
tion as  to  labor  problems  and  conditions  in  the  United 
States.  There  was  much  animated  conversation  both  during 
the  dinner  and  afterwards.  When  the  guests  were  depart- 
ing the  President  followed  them  into  the  hall,  talking  and 
gesticulating  in  his  usual  emphatic  manner.  Mr.  Morley 
touched  me  on  the  arm,  pointed  to  him  and  said:  "Look 
at  him!  And  he  has  been  doing  that  all  day  long!"  As 
he  said  this  he  sank  into  a  chair  as  if  completely  exhausted 
by  the  mere  sight  of  such  tireless  energy. 

One  subject  upon  which  Mr.  Morley  talked  much  with 
the  President  was  the  announcement  which  the  latter  had 
made  on  the  night  of  election  declaring  his  intention  not  to 
take  a  nomination  for  another  term.  He  expressed  himself 
as  quite  unable  to  comprehend  it,  saying  that  the  act  seemed 
to  him  as  inexplicable  as  it  would  have  been  if  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, at  the  height  of  his  career,  had  declared  after  a  tri- 
umph at  the  polls,  that  he  would  never  consent  to  go  before 
the  people  of  Great  Britain  again  as  candidate  for  Prime 
Minister. 

In  explanation  of  his  action  the  President  said  that  since 
the  time  of  Washington  the  American  people  had,  wisely  as 
he  thought,  established  a  custom  against  allowing  any  one 
to  hold  the  office  of  President  for  more  than  two  consecu- 
tive terms.  Their  reason  had  been  that  the  Presidency 
being  a  great  office,  the  power  of  the  President,  especially 


340  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

if  he  had  the  support  of  great  political  and  financial  inter- 
ests, could  be  used  effectively  to  secure  his  renomination. 
There  had  been  much  said  by  his  opponents  in  the  cam- 
paign about  his  supposed  personal  ambition  and  intention 
to  use  the  office  to  perpetuate  himself  in  power.  He  had  not 
said  anything  on  the  subject  prior  to  election  because  he 
did  not  wish  to  say  anything  that  could  be  construed  into 
a  promise  made  as  a  consideration  for  securing  votes.  In 
making  the  announcement  after  election  he  had  chosen 
the  exact  phraseology  he  used  for  two  reasons:  First, 
many  of  his  supporters  were  insisting  that  as  his  first  term 
had  consisted  of  only  three  years  and  a  half,  becoming 
President  through  the  death  of  the  incumbent,  he  would, 
at  the  end  of  seven  years  and  a  half,  have  really  served  for 
only  one  elective  term  so  that  the  third-term  custom  would 
not  apply  to  him.  He  wished  to  repudiate  this  suggestion. 
Believing  the  third-term  custom  to  be  wholesome,  he  was 
determined  to  regard  its  substance,  refusing  to  quibble 
about  the  form  of  words  usually  employed  to  express  it. 
Second,  he  did  not  wish  simply  and  specifically  to  say  that 
he  would  not  be  a  candidate  for  the  nomination  in  1908, 
for  to  specify  any  year  in  which  he  would  not  be  a  candi- 
date would  have  been  widely  accepted  as  meaning  that  he 
would  be  a  candidate  in  some  other  year,  and  he  had  no 
such  intention  and  no  idea  that  he  would  ever  be  a  candi- 
date again.  He  had  been  asked  by  newspaper  men  if  his 
renunciation  applied  to  1912,  and  he  had  replied  that  he 
was  not  thinking  of  1912,  or  1920,  or  1940,  and  declined  to 
add  anything  whatever  to  what  appeared  in  his  statement. 
So  far  as  the  third-term  custom  was  concerned,  he  added 
that  it  had  no  application  whatever  to  anything  except  two 
consecutive  terms,  since  every  shred  of  power  which  a 
President  exercises  while  in  office  vanishes  absolutely  when 
he  ceases  to  hold  it,  and  an  ex-President  stands  precisely 
in  the  position  of  any  other  private  citizen,  and  has  no 
more  power  to  secure  a  nomination  or  election  than  he 
would  have  if  he  had  never  held  the  office,  indeed,  he  prob- 
ably would  have  less  from  the  very  fact  that  he  had  held  it. 


VISIT  OF  JOHN  MORLEY  AT  THE  WHITE  HOUSE      341 

The  subject  was  in  Mr.  Morley 's  mind  when,  soon  after 
his  White  House  visit,  he  said  in  a  speech  which  he  made  at 
the  annual  banquet  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  in  New 
York,  on  November  15,  1904: 

"It  would  be  most  unbecoming  of  me  to  say  a  word  as  to 
the  personality  of  your  new  President.  I  will  say  this  in 
passing,  that  it  is  very  gratifying  to  me  to  find  that  a  man 
may  write  a  book  about  Oliver  Cromwell  and  yet  be  thought 
a  very  good  man  to  whom  to  trust  the  destinies  of  a  nation, 
because,  for  no  better  reason,  that  I  have  written  about 
Oliver  Cromwell  also.  One  of  his  memorable  performances 
was,  as  you  all  know,  his  self-denying  ordinance — a  thing 
for  which  Oliver  Cromwell  himself  was  solely  responsible — 
to  withdraw  himself  from  active  military  and  public  life 
at  a  certain  moment.  There  appears  to  be  something  like 
a  self-denying  ordinance  announced  for  the  public  the  day 
after  election.  Whether  that  was  an  imitation  of  Cromwell 
or  not  I  do  not  inquire,  but  this  I  do  say,  without,  I  hope, 
being  impertinent,  that  in  your  new  President  you  have  got 
a  man.  All  sorts  of  events  within  the  four  years  may  break 
out  upon  the  world — events  in  the  oldest  parts  of  Europe — 
there  are  lives  in  the  old  parts  of  Europe  upon  which  re- 
sults may  hang;  you  have  in  the  Pacific  enormous  risks, 
possibilities,  open  questions,  and  all  I  can  say  is  that  it  will 
be  a  great  thing  for  diplomatists  to  know  that  in  dealing 
with  the  government  that  will  come  into  power  and  office 
here  on  the  fourth  of  March  next  year,  they  are  dealing 
with  a  man  who  has  behind  him,  unless  I  am  mistaken,  the 
American  people." 

After  he  returned  to  England  Lord  Morley  summed  up 
his  estimate  of  the  President  in  a  neat  epigram.  Writing  to 
Eoosevelt  on  September  15,  1905,  Senator  Lodge  said : 

"Lady  Harcourt  (widow  of  Sir  Vernon  Harcourt)  told 
me  that  Morley  came  to  see  her  when  he  returned  from  the 
United  States.  She  asked  him  to  tell  her  about  you.  He 
said :    '  He  is  not  an  American,  you  know.  He  is  America, ' ' ' 


342  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

To  this  Roosevelt  replied  on  the  same  date : 
"That  was  a  very  nice  thing  of  Morley  to  say,  so  long  as 
it  is  confined  to  one  or  two  of  my  intimate  friends  who  won 't 
misunderstand  it !  Just  at  the  moment  people  are  speaking 
altogether  too  well  of  me,  which  is  enough  to  make  any  man 
feel  uncomfortable ;  for  if  he  has  any  sense  he  knows  that 
the  reaction  is  perfectly  certain  to  come  under  such  circum- 
stances, and  that  then  people  will  revenge  themselves  for 
feeling  humiliated  for  having  said  too  much  on  one  side 
by  saying  too  much  on  the  other. ' ' 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

ILLUMINATING   LETTERS   ON  VARIOUS   SUBJECTS,   IN- 
CLUDING QUESTIONS  OF  POLICY 

A  gbeat  flood  of  congratulatory  letters  poured  in  upon 
the  President  after  his  election.  His  replies  to  those  that 
came  from  personal  friends,  written  as  they  were  in  the 
full  flush  of  his  great  triumph,  are  among  the  most  com- 
pletely self -revealing  that  he  ever  penned.  They  disclose 
the  fundamental  principles  upon  which  he  based  his  pol- 
icies, and  the  profound  and  matured  convictions  which  ani- 
mated his  public  conduct.  They  show  also  that  his  head 
was  not  in  the  least  turned  by  the  victory,  that  he  regarded 
it  as  a  vote  of  confidence  by  the  nation,  and  that  the  su- 
preme joy  which  he  derived  from  it  was  the  assurance  it 
gave  of  overwhelming  popular  support  of  the  issues  for 
which  he  stood  and  which  were  dearest  to  his  heart. 

Writing  to  George  Haven  Putnam,  of  New  York,  on 
November  15,  1904,  he  made  a  vigorous  defense  of  a  much 
criticized  method  of  procedure  that  he  had  followed  in  ad- 
vancing his  policies: 

"I  shall  do  all  I  can  to  deserve  the  confidence  the  Nation 
has  reposed  in  me.  But  there  is  one  point  [in  your  letter] 
which  I  should  like  to  correct  and  which  I  fear  is  a  misap- 
prehension of  yours.  You  speak  of  'men  like  Quay  and 
Addicks  having  no  claim  under  existing  conditions  to 
having  any  essential  part  in  making  me  President  for  the 
four  years  beginning  with  March  4, '  and  this  seems  to  im- 
ply that  you  think  that  in  the  past  three  and  a  half  years  I 
have  dealt  with  them  because  they  had  such  claim.  I  have 
never  dealt  with  Addicks  at  all.  With  Quay  and  all  the 
other  Senators  I  have  dealt  continually,  and  during  the 
next  four  years  I  shall  deal  with  all  the  men  of  this  kind 

343 


344  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

just  exactly  as  I  have  dealt  with  them  for  the  last  three. 
"I  have  dealt  with  Quay  and  with  all  similar  men,  not 
because  I  regarded  them  as  making  me  President,  not  be- 
cause I  had  anything  selfish  to  expect  from  them,  but  be- 
cause, not  being  a  fool,  and  having  certain  policies  for  the 
welfare  of  the  Eepublic  at, heart,  I  realized  that  I  could 
succeed  in  these  policies  only  by  working  with  the  men  of 
prominence  in  the  Eepublican  party.  That  ridiculous 
Parker  Constitution  Club,  for  instance,  numbers  among 
its  members  and  backers  people  who  at  the  same  time 
falsely  attack  me  for  imaginary  violations  of  the  Consti- 
tution and  then  argue  that  I  should  try  to  violate  the  Con- 
stitution by  disregarding  Quay  and  the  other  Senators  who, 
under  the  first  article  of  that  Constitution,  are  the  official 
advisers  wThom  I  must  consult,  and  without  whose  acqui- 
escence I  can  not  make  a  single  appointment.  I  did  not 
make  these  men  Senators.  They  are  in  the  Senate ;  and  I 
should  be  derelict  in  my  duty  if  I  did  not  try  to  get  along 
with  them.  I  should  be  heartily  ashamed  of  myself  if  this 
election  made  any  real  change  in  my  attitude  towards  them. 
This  attitude  has  not  been  due  in  the  past  to  any  desire 
for  self-advancement  on  my  part,  and  therefore  there  is  no 
need  to  change  it  simply  because  it  is  no  longer  possible 
for  these  men  to  do  anything  for  my  advancement.' ' 

In  somewhat  similar  vein  he  wrote  to  Owen  Wister  on 
November  19,  1904 : 

"I  have  been  most  abundantly  rewarded,  far  beyond  my 
deserts,  by  the  American  people ;  and  I  say  this  with  all  sin- 
cerity and  not  in  any  spirit  of  mock  humility.  The  stars  in 
their  courses  fought  for  me.  I  was  forced  to  try  a  dozen 
pieces  of  doubtful  and  difficult  work  in  which  it  was  possk 
ble  to  deserve  success,  but  in  which  it  would  not  have  been 
possible  even  for  Lincoln  or  Washington  to  be  sure  of  com- 
manding success.  I  mean  the  Panama  business,  the  anthra- 
cite coal  strike,  the  Northern  Securities  suit,  the  Philippine 
Church  question,  the  whole  Cuban  business,  the  Alaska 
boundary,  thQ  Government  open  shop  matter,  irrigation 


ILLUMINATING  LETTERS  ON  VARIOUS  SUBJECTS     345 

and  forestry  work,  etc.,  etc.  In  each  case,  partly  by  hard 
and  intelligent  work  and  partly  by  good  fortune,  we  won 
out.    .    .    . 

"It  is  a  peculiar  gratification  to  me  to  have  owed  my 
election  not  to  the  politicians  primarily,  although  of  course 
I  have  done  my  best  to  get  on  with  them ;  not  to  the  finan- 
ciers, although  I  have  staunchly  upheld  the  rights  of  prop- 
erty; but  above  all  to  Abraham  Lincoln's  ' plain  people'; 
to  the  folk  who  worked  hard  on  farm,  in  shop,  or  on  the  rail- 
roads, or  who  owned  little  stores,  little  businesses  which 
they  managed  themselves.  I  would  literally,  not  figura- 
tively, rather  cut  off  my  right  hand  than  forfeit  by  any 
improper  act  of  mine  the  trust  and  regard  of  these  people. 
I  may  have  to  do  something  of  which  they  will  disapprove, 
because  I  deem  it  absolutely  right  and  necessary ;  but  most 
assuredly  I  shall  endeavor  not  to  merit  their  disapproval 
by  any  act  inconsistent  with  the  ideal  they  have  formed 
with  me. 

"But  the  gentle  folk,  the  people  whom  you  and  I  meet 
at  the  houses  of  our  friends  and  at  our  clubs;  the  people 
who  went  to  Harvard  as  we  did,  or  to  other  colleges  more 
or  less  like  Harvard,  these  people  have  contained  many  of 
those  who  have  been  most  bitter  in  their  opposition  to  me, 
and  their  support  on  the  whole  has  been  much  more  luke- 
warm than  the  support  of  those  whom  I  have  called  the 
plain  people.    .    .    . 

"But  the  New  York  Evening  Post  crowd  are  hypocritical 
and  insincere  when  they  oppose  me.  They  have  loudly  pro- 
fessed to  demand  just  exactly  the  kind  of  government  I 
have  given,  and  yet  they  have  done  their  futile  best  to  de- 
feat me.  They  have  not  been  able  to  do  me  personally  any 
harm;  but  they  continually  do  the  cause  of  good  govern- 
ment a  certain  amount  of  harm  by  diverting  into  foolish 
channels  of  snarling  and  critical  impotence  the  energies  of 
fine  young  fellows  who  ought  to  be  a  power  for  good.  Take 
Carl  Schurz's  attack  upon  me  for  acting  as  any  gentleman 
would  act  with  Hanna  and  Quay  when  they  were  on  their 
death-beds:  or  take  his  statement  that  because  I  had  seen 


346  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Addicks  and  Lou  Payn  I  was  to  be  repudiated,  as  'the 
friendship  of  the  wicked  has  its  price.'  In  the  first  place, 
I  have  seen  Lou  Payn  just  once,  at  his  request.  I  have 
seen  Addicks  perhaps  three  times,  at  his  request,  of  course. 
I  have  never  since  I  have  been  President  done  for  either 
Addicks  or  Payn  one  single  act;  never  made  an  appoint- 
ment for  either  of  them  or  done  anything  else  for  either 
of  them;  in  the  next  place,  I  shall  continue  to  see  both  of 
them  whenever  they  choose  to  call,  and  to  see  everybody 
else  who  chooses  to  call — unless  it  be  some  creature  who 
renders  it  impossible  for  me  to  see  him.  For  instance,  if 
Hearst,  while  Congressman,  calls  upon  me  I  shall  see  him 
as  a  matter  of  course.  I  continually  see  'Dry  Dollar' 
Sullivan.  If  my  virtue  ever  becomes  so  frail  that  it  will 
not  stand  meeting  men  of  whom  I  thoroughly  disapprove, 
but  who  are  in  active  official  life  and  whom  I  must  encoun- 
ter, why  I  shall  go  out  of  politics  and  become  an  anchorite. 
Whether  I  see  these  men  or  do  not  see  them,  if  I  do  for  them 
anything  improper  then  I  am  legitimately  subject  to  criti- 
cism; but  only  a  fool  will  criticize  me  because  I  see  them." 

Between  the  President  and  Finley  Peter  Dunne  ("Mr. 
Dooley")  a  cordial  and  thoroughly  congenial  friendship  ex- 
isted, undisturbed  by  the  latter 's  many  humorous  accounts 
of  notable  events  in  Roosevelt's  career.  Mr.  Dooley  pub- 
lished an  article  describing  the  election  as  an  "Anglo-Saxon 
triumph,"  which  aroused  the  President  to  a  lively  protest 
in  which  he  said: 

"Now,  oh  laughing  philosopher  (because  you  are  not  only 
one  who  laughs,  but  also  a  genuine  philosopher  and  because 
your  philosophy  has  a  real  effect  upon  this  country),  I 
want  to  enter  a  strong  protest  against  your  very  amusing 
and  very  wrong-headed  article  on  the  'Anglo-Saxon  Tri- 
umph. '  In  this  article,  as  in  everything  else  you  have  writ- 
ten about  me,  you  are  as  nice  as  possible  as  to  me  person- 
ally, and  the  fun  about  the  feeling  abroad,  including 
England,  is  perfectly  legitimate.  If  you  have  ever  hap- 
pened to  see  what  I  have  written  on  the  matter  of  the 


ILLUMINATING  LETTERS  ON  VARIOUS  SUBJECTS     347 

Anglo-Saxon  business  you  may  have  noticed  that  I  have 
always  insisted  that  we  are  not  Anglo-Saxon  at  all — even 
admitting  for  the  sake  of  argument,  which  I  do  not,  that 
there  are  any  Anglo-Saxons — but  a  new  and  mixed  race — 
a  race  drawing  its  blood  from  many  different  sources.    .    .    . 

"My  own  view  is,  that  if  a  man  is  good  enough  for  me  to 
profit  by  his  services  before  election,  he  is  good  enough 
for  me  to  do  what  I  can  for  him  after  election ;  and  I  do  not 
give  a  damn  whether  his  name  happens  to  be  Casey,  or 
Schwartzmeister,  or  Van  Eensselaer,  or  Peabody.  I  think 
my  whole  public  life  has  been  an  emphatic  protest  against 
the  Peabodys  and  Van  Eensselaers  arrogating  to  them- 
selves any  superiorities  over  the  Caseys  and  Schwartzmeis- 
ters.  But  in  return  I  will  not,  where  I  have  anything  to  say 
about  it,  tolerate  for  one  moment  any  assumption  of  supe- 
riority by  the  Caseys  and  Schwartzmeisters  over  the  Pea- 
bodys and  Van  Eensselaers.  I  did  not  notice  any  difference 
between  them  as  they  fought  in  my  regiment ;  and  I  had  lots 
of  representatives  of  all  of  them  in  it.  If  you  will  look  at 
the  nomenclature  of  the  Yale,  Harvard  and  Princeton 
teams  this  year,  or  any  other  year,  and  then  at  the  feats 
performed  by  the  men  bearing  the  names,  you  will  come  to 
the  conclusion,  Friend  Dooley,  that  Peabody  and  Van 
Eensselaer  and  Saltonstall  and  Witherspoon  are  pretty 
tough  citizens  to  handle  in  a  mixup  and  that  they  will  be 
found  quite  as  often  at  the  top  of  the  heap  as  at  the  bot- 
tom. 

' '  There  is  nothing  against  which  I  protest  more  strongly, 
socially  and  politically,  than  any  proscription  of  or  looking 
down  upon  decent  Americans  because  they  are  of  Irish 
or  German  ancestry;  but  I  protest  just  exactly  as  strongly 
against  any  similar  discrimination  against  or  sneering  at 
men  because  they  happen  to  be  descended  from  people  who 
came  over  here  some  three  centuries  ago,  whether  they 
landed  at  Plymouth,  or  at  the  mouth  of  the  Hudson.  I 
have  fought  beside  and  against  Americans  of  Irish,  of 
German,  and  of  old  Colonial  stock  in  every  political  contest 
in  which  I  have  engaged ;  I  have  been  a  fairly  good  rough- 


348  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

and-tumble  man  myself ;  I  have  never  asked  any  odds ;  and 
I  have  generally  held  my  own. 

"I  am  sure  you  will  agree  with  me  that  in  our  political 
life,  very  unlike  what  is  the  case  in  our  social  life,  the 
temptation  is  toward  Anglophobia,  not  toward  Anglomania. 
The  cheapest  thing  for  any  politician  to  do,  the  easiest,  and 
too  often  politically  one  of  the  most  remunerative,  is  to 
make  some  yell  about  England.  One  of  the  things  I  am 
most  pleased  with  in  the  recent  election  is  that  while  I  got, 
I  think,  a  greater  proportion  of  the  Americans  of  Irish 
birth  or  parentage  and  of  the  Catholic  religion  than  any 
previous  Eepublican  candidate,  I  got  this  proportion  purely 
because  they  knew  I  felt  in  sympathy  with  them  and  in 
touch  with  them,  and  that  they  and  I  had  the  same  ideals 
and  principles,  and  not  by  any  demagogic  appeals  about 
creed  or  race,  or  by  any  demagogic  attack  upon  England. 
I  feel  a  sincere  friendliness  for  England;  but  you  may 
notice  that  I  do  not  slop  over  about  it,  and  that  I  do  not 
in  the  least  misunderstand  England's  attitude,  or,  for  the 
matter  of  that,  the  attitude  of  any  European  nation  as  re- 
gards us.  We  shall  keep  the  respect  of  each  of  them  just  *\ 
as  long  as  we  are  thoroughly  able  to  hold  our  own,  and  no  \ 
longer.  If  we  got  into  trouble,  there  is  not  one  of  them  / 
upon  whose  friendship  we  could  count  to  get  us  out ;  what/ 
we  shall  need  to  count  upon  is  the  efficiency  of  our  fighting 
men  and  particularly  of  our  neighbor. 

"  There  is  one  thing  to  which  I  should  like  to  call  your 
attention.  If  an  Anglomaniac  in  social  life  goes  into  po- 
litical life  he  usually  becomes  politically  an  Anglophobiac, 
and  the  occasional  political  Anglophobiac  whose  curious 
ambition  it  is  to  associate  socially  with  *  vacuity  trimmed 
with  lace '  is  equally  sure  to  become  an  Anglomaniac  in  his 
new  surroundings.' y 

Several  letters  which  the  President  wrote  at  this  period 
are  of  interest  and  value  both  as  displaying  his  indefati- 
gable reading  habit  and  disclosing  his  views  upon  national 


ILLUMINATING  LETTERS  ON  VARIOUS  SUBJECTS     349 

questions  connected  with  and  growing  out  of  the  Civil  War. 
To  James  Ford  Khodes  he  wrote  on  November  29,  1904 : 

"I  have  just  finished  your  fifth  volume  and  am  delighted 
with  it.  I  do  not  know  whether  I  told  you  that  during  the 
campaign  I  reread  your  first  four.  At  the  same  time  I  read 
Macaulay's  'History'  and  many  of  Lincoln's  letters  and 
speeches,  and  I  got  real  help  from  all  of  them.  It  seems 
to  me,  that  allowing  for  difference  of  epoch  and  nationality, 
you  and  Macaulay  approach  the  great  subject  of  self-gov- 
ernment by  a  free  people  in  much  the  same  spirit  and  from 
the  same  philosophical  standpoint. 

"In  the  last  volume  I  was  immensely  pleased  with  every- 
thing. Perhaps  I  should  bar  one  sentence — that  in  which 
you  say  that  in  no  quarrel  is  the  right  all  on  one  side,  and 
the  wrong  all  on  the  other.  As  regards  the  actual  act  of 
secession,  the  actual  opening  of  the  Civil  War,  I  think  the 
right  was  exclusively  with  the  Union  people  and  the  wrong 
exclusively  with  the  Secessionists;  and  indeed  I  do  not 
know  of  another  struggle  in  history  in  which  this  sharp 
division  between  right  and  wrong  can  be  made  in  quite 
so  clear-cut  a  manner.  I  am  half  Southern.  My  mother's 
kinsfolk  fought  on  the  Confederate  side,  and  I  am  proud 
of  them.  I  fully  believe  in  and  appreciate  not  only  the 
valor  of  the  South,  but  its  lofty  devotion  to  the  right  as  it 
saw  the  right ;  and  yet  I  think  that  on  every  ground — that 
is,  on  the  question  of  the  Union,  on  the  question  of  slavery, 
on  the  question  of  State  rights — it  was  wrong  with  a  folly 
that  amounted  to  madness,  and  with  a  perversity  that 
amounted  to  wickedness. 

"I  am  much  interested  in  what  you  say  as  to  Grant's 
superiority  over  Lee  in  the  fortnight's  operations  ending 
at  Appomattox,  which  brought  the  Civil  War  to  a  close. 
For  the  previous  year,  it  seems  to  me,  that  Lee  had  shown 
himself  the  superior,  but  during  this  fortnight  Grant  rose 
to  his  Vicksburg  level.  A  mighty  pair  of  Generals  they 
were! 

*  'Beading  your  history  brings  out  the  essential  greatness 
of  Lincoln  ever  more  and  more.    Perhaps,  as  you  say,  he 


350  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

and  Washington  do  not  come  in  the  very  limited  class  of 
men  which  include  Caesar,  Alexander  and  Napoleon,  but 
they  are  far  better  men  for  a  nation  to  develop  than  any 
of  these  three  giants;  and,  excepting  only  these  three,  I 
hardly  see  any  greater  figures  loom  up  in  the  history  of 
civilized  nations.  There  have  been  other  men  as  good — 
men  like  Timoleon  and  John  Hampden;  but  no  other  good 
men  have  been  as  great. 

'  *  The  trouble  I  am  having  with  the  Southern  question — 
which,  my  dear  sir,  I  beg  you  to  believe  I  am  painfully 
striving  to  meet,  so  far  as  in  me  lies,  in  the  spirit  of 
Abraham  Lincoln — emphasizes  the  infinite  damage  done  in 
reconstruction  days  by  the  unregenerate  arrogance  and 
short-sightedness  of  the  Southerners  and  the  doctrinaire 
folly  of  radicals  like  Sumner  and  Thaddeus  Stevens.  The 
more  I  study  the  Civil  War  and  the  time  following  it,  the 
more  I  feel  (as  of  course  every  one  feels)  the  towering 
greatness  of  Lincoln  which  puts  him  before  all  other  men  of 
our  time." 

More  specifically  about  the  Southern  question,  he  wrote 
to  Henry  S.  Pritchett,  President  of  the  Massachusetts  In- 
stitute of  Technology,  on  December  14, 1904 : 

"I  have  always  felt  that  the  passage  of  the  Fifteenth 
Amendment  at  the  time  it  was  passed  was  a  mistake ;  but 
to  admit  this  is  very  different  from  admitting  that  it  is 
wise,  even  if  it  were  practicable,  now  to  repeal  that  amend- 
ment. .  .  .  But  it  is  out  of  the  question  that  there  can  be 
permanent  acquiescence  on  the  part  of  the  North  in  an  ar- 
rangement under  which  Mr.  John  Sharp  Williams,  the 
leader  of  the  minority  in  the  House,  as  compared  with  Mr. 
Cannon,  the  Speaker,  elected  by  the  majority,  has  just  four 
times  the  political  weight  to  which  he  is  entitled.  Mr. 
Williams  represents  a  district  in  which  there  are  three 
blacks  to  one  white.  It  is  an  outrage  that,  this  one  white 
man  should  first  be  allowed  to  suppress  the  votes  of  the 
three  black  men,  and  then  to  cast  them  by  himself  in  order 


ILLUMINATING  LETTERS  ON  VARIOUS  SUBJECTS     351 

to  make  his  own  vote  equal  to  that  of  four  men  in  Mr. 
Cannon's  district.  If  this  result  came  about  as  a  natural 
effect  of  a  genuine  and  honest  effort  to  enforce  an  illiteracy 
test,  or  something  of  the  sort,  I  believe  there  would  be  little 
or  no  objection  to  it  in  the  North,  in  spite  of  the  damage 
done  the  North  thereby;  for  I  believe  that  the  North  has 
hearty  sympathy  with  the  trials  of  the  South  and  is  gen- 
erously glad  to  assist  the  South  whenever  the  South  does 
not  render  it  impossible  by  '  superfluity  of  naughtiness. ' 

"The  trouble  is  that  there  is  no  such  genuine  law,  and 
that  there  is  no  white  man  from  a  Southern  district  in 
which  blacks  are  numerous  who  does  not  tell  you,  either 
defiantly  or  as  a  joke,  that  any  white  man  is  allowed  to 
vote,  no  matter  how  ignorant  and  degraded,  and  that  the 
negro  vote  is  practically  suppressed  because  it  is  the  negro 
vote.  To  acquiesce  in  this  state  of  things  because  it  is  not 
possible  at  the  time  to  attempt  to  change  it  without  doing 
damage  is  one  thing.  It's  quite  another  thing  to  do  any- 
thing which  will  seem  formally  to  approve  it.    .    .    . 

"My  own  view  of  this  Southern  question  is,  as  I  have 
said,  fundamentally  yours  and  Bhodes\  What  I  am  now 
puzzling  over  is  whether  it  is  best  simply  to  go  on  as  I  have 
gone,  saying  nothing,  or  to  try  to  say  something.  I  have 
been  interested  at  the  great  number  of  requests  I  am  now 
receiving  from  Southern  cities  to  visit  them  and  address 
their  citizens.  I  do  not  know  whether  it  means  that  they 
begin  to  understand  that  I  am  not  their  enemy,  or  whether 
it  is  simply  the  same  kind  of  a  feeling  that  would  make 
them  interested  in  a  circus  coming  to  town.  I  do  not  want 
to  crowd  things,  or  in  any  way  to  seem  to  truckle  to  the 
South,  and  my  present  thought  is  that  I  shall  simply  go 
through  San  Antonio,  where  there  is  reason  for  my  going, 
and  defer  most  of  my  other  visits  to  the  South  until  a  little 
later.  If  I  can  hammer  out  just  the  kind  of  speech  I  want 
to  make,  I  may  make  it  on  Lincoln's  birthday;  but  if  I  am 
not  fairly  sure  that  I  am  saying  the  right  thing  I  shall 
not  say  anything  on  the  subject." 


352  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

In  this  letter  to  Mr.  Pritehett,  the  President  gives  utter- 
ance to  a  sentiment  about  Lincoln  and  the  White  House 
which  all  his  intimates  knew  rested  upon  him  like  a  spell: 

"It  is  curious  that  you  should  give  utterance  to  exactly 
my  thought  when  you  say: 

"  *I  never  go  into  the  White  House  and  through  the 
corridors  and  up  the  stairs  where  you  pass  every  day  with- 
out thinking  of  old  Lincoln,  with  his  shambling  figure,  com- 
ing down  the  steps  in  the  early  morning,  in  his  cloth 
slippers,  on  his  way  to  the  War  Department  to  read  the 
night's  dispatches. ' 

"I  think  of  Lincoln,  shambling,  homely,  with  his  strong, 
sad,  deeply-furrowed  face,  all  the  time.  I  see  him  in  the 
different  rooms  and  in  the  halls.  For  some  reason  or  other 
he  is  to  me  infinitely  the  most  real  of  the  dead  Presidents. 
So  far  as  one  who  is  not  a  great  man  can  model  himself 
upon  one  who  was,  I  try  to  follow  out  the  general  lines  of 
policy  which  Lincoln  laid  down.  I  do  not  like  to  say  this 
in  public,  for  I  suppose  it  would  seem  as  if  I  were  presum- 
ing, but  I  know  you  will  understand  the  spirit  in  which  I 
am  saying  it.  I  wish  to  Heaven  I  had  his  invariable  equa- 
nimity. I  try  my  best  not  to  give  expression  to  irritation, 
but  sometimes  I  do  get  deeply  irritated.,, 

Shortly  after  election  in  1904,  Justice  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes,  of  the  Supreme  Court,  sent  to  Roosevelt  a  little 
book  by  President  Eliot,  of  Harvard,  entitled  'The  Dur- 
able Satisfactions  of  Life/  Two  sentences  in  it, — "Not 
one  human  being  in  ten  million  is  really  long  remembered. 
For  the  mass  of  mankind  oblivion,  like  death,  is  sure"— 
especially  attracted  the  President's  attention,  and  on  De- 
cember 5,  he  wrote  to  the  Justice  this  quite  remarkable 
letter : 

"I  was  rather  struck  at  what  President  Eliot  said  about 
oblivion  so  speedily  overtaking  almost  every  one.  But  after 
all,  what  does  the  fact  amount  to  that  here  and  there  a  man 


ILLUMINATING  LETTERS  ON  VARIOUS  SUBJECTS      353 

escapes  oblivion  longer  than  his  fellows?  Ozymandias  in 
the  desert — when  a  like  interval  has  gone  by,  who  will 
know  more  of  any  man  of  the  present  day  than  Shelley 
knew  of  him?  I  suppose  it's  only  about  ten  thousand  years 
since  the  last  glacial  epoch  (at  least,  that  is,  I  understand, 
the  newest  uncertain  guess  of  the  geologists) ;  and  this 
covers  more  than  the  period  in  which  there  is  anything  that 
we  can  even  regard  as  civilization.  Of  course  when  we 
go  back  even  half  that  time  we  get  past  the  period  when 
any  man's  memory,  no  matter  how  great  the  man,  is  more 
than  a  flickering  shadow  t6  us ;  yet  this  distance  is  too  small 
to  be  measured  when  we  look  at  the  ages,  even  at  rather 
short  range — not  astronomically  but  geometrically.  That 
queer  creature  Ware,  my  pension  commissioner,  who  al- 
ways uses  the  terminology  of  his  Kansas  environment,  but 
who  has  much  philosophy  of  his  own,  once  wrote  the  follow- 
ing verses  on  this  very  question : 

History. 

Over  the  infinite  prairie  of  level  eternity, 
Flying  as  flies  the  deer, 

Time  is  pursued  by  a  pitiless,  cruel  oblivion, 
Following  fast  and  near. 

Ever  and  ever  the  famished  coyote  is  following 
Patiently  in  the  rear; 

Trifling  the  interval,  yet  we  are  calling  it  "History " 

Distance  from  wolf  to  deer. 

"  Whether  the  distance  between  the  wolf  and  the  deer  is 
a  couple  of  inches  or  a  quarter  of  a  mile  is  not  really  of 
much  consequence  in  the  end.  It  is  passed  over  mighty 
quickly  in  either  event,  and  it  makes  small  odds  to  any  of 
us  after  we  are  dead  whether  the  next  generation  forgets 
us,  or  whether  a  number  of  generations  pass  before  our 
memory,  steadily  growing  more  and  more  dim,  at  last  fades 
into  nothing.  On  this  point  it  seems  to  me  that  the  only 
important  thing  is  to  be  able  to  feel,  when  our  time  comes 
to  go  out  into  the  blackness,  that  those  survivors  who  care 
for  us  and  to  whom  it  will  be  a  pleasure  to  think  well  of  us 
when  we  are  gone  shall  have  that  pleasure.    Save  in  a  few 


354  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

wholly  exceptional  cases,  cases  of  men  such  as  are  not  alive 
at  this  particular  time,  it  is  only  possible  in  any  event  that 
a  comparatively  few  people  can  have  this  feeling  for  any 
length  of  time.  But  it  is  a  good  thing  if  as  many  as  possible 
feel  it  even  for  a  short  time,  and  it  is  surely  a  good  thing 
that  those  whom  we  love  should  feel  it  as  long  as  they  too 
live. 

1 1 1  should  be  quite  unable  to  tell  you  why  I  think  it  would 
be  pleasant  to  feel  that  one  has  lived  manfully  and  honor- 
ably when  the  time  comes  after  which  all  things  are  the 
same  to  every  man ;  yet  I  am  very  sure  that  it  is  well  so  to 
feel,  that  it  is  well  to  have  lived  so  that  at  the  end  it  may 
be  possible  to  know  that  on  the  whole  one's  duties  had  not 
been  shirked,  that  there  has  been  no  flinching  from  foes,  no 
lack  of  gentleness  and  loyalty  to  friends,  and  a  reasonable 
measure  of  success  in  the  effort  to  do  the  task  allotted. 
This  is  just  the  kind  of  feeling  that  President  Eliot's  hero 
had  the  right  to  have ;  and  a  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court 
or  a  President  or  a  General  or  an  Admiral,  may  be  mighty 
thankful  if  at  the  end  he  has  earned  a  similar  right!" 

No  President,  and  no  other  public  man  anywhere,  was 
ever  more  photographed  than  Roosevelt,  and  it  is  interest- 
ing to  see  from  a  letter,  written  on  November  18,  1904,  to 
R.  W.  Gilder,  editor  of  the  Century  Magazine,  what  his 
feelings  on  the  subject  really  were : 

' '  I  do  not  want  to  begin  to  have  new  photographs  taken. 
If  I  do  it  in  one  case,  I  must  do  it  in  others.  In  the  first 
place,  it  is  an  intolerable  nuisance ;  and  in  the  next  place  it 
creates  a  false  impression.  People  do  not  realize  that  I  do 
not  like  to  sit  for  photographs  and  that  it  is  only  a  good- 
natured  acquiescence  on  my  part  when  I  do.  Nqw  there  is 
not  the  slightest  need  of  a  new  photograph.  Dozens  of 
excellent  ones  have  been  taken.  Take  any  one  of  these. 
It  will  do  just  exactly  as  well." 

When  Joseph  H.  Choate  resigned  the  ambassadorship  to 
England,  the  President,  on  December  24,  1904,  wrote  to 
him  this  cordially  appreciative  letter: 


ILLUMINATING  LETTERS  ON  VARIOUS  SUBJECTS     355 

"I  have  just  received  your  letter  of  resignation  coupled 
with  your  private  letter  in  which  you  ask  that  it  be  accepted 
and  give  reasons  therefor  which  would  seem  to  be  con- 
trolling. It  is  with  genuine  reluctance  that  I  accept  it.  You 
have  rendered  not  merely  loyal  but  distinguished  service. 
Not  since  Mr.  Adams  has  any  of  our  ambassadors  to  Eng- 
land served  as  long  as  you  have  served ;  and  not  since  Mr. 
Adams  has  any  Ambassador  in  your  position  rendered 
more  devoted  and  more  efficient  service  to  the  country.  I 
thank  you  with  all  my  heart,  not  only  as  President,  but  as 
an  American  citizen,  for  what  you  have  done;  and  your 
countrymen,  you  may  rest  assured,  appreciate  it  to  the  full, 
and  when  you  return  will  show  you  by  their  affectionate 
welcome  that  the  great  place  you  already  had  in  their  re- 
gard and  esteem  has  grown  even  greater.  Distinguished 
though  your  career  has  been,  no  part  of  it  has  been  more 
distinguished  than  that  which  has  fallen  within  the  last  six 
years. 

"You  ask  as  to  the  time  when  you  can  take  your  depar- 
ture; but  you  mention  that  you  had  hoped  to  complete  and 
dedicate  while  yet  in  England  your  memorial  window  to 
John  Harvard  in  St.  Saviour's  Church.  You  say  that  you 
still  hope  to  accomplish  this  before  your  recall  reaches  you. 
If  the  delay  will  not  inconvenience  you  I  should  like  to  have 
you  arrange  to  stay  until  you  can  dedicate  this  window  per- 
sonally. Accordingly,  subject  as  I  say  to  your  convenience, 
I  shall  ask  you  to  let  me  know  the  date  when  you  expect  to 
dedicate  it,  and  I  shall  then  notify  you,  accepting  the  resig- 
nation at  a  time  shortly  subsequent  thereto." 

Two  letters  which  the  President  wrote  at  this  period  set 
forth  in  engaging  language  his  views  about  the  duties. of 
ambassadors  and  ministers  at  foreign  courts.  The  first 
was  addressed,  on  December  26,  1904,  to  George  von  L. 
Meyer,  who  at  the  time  was  serving  as  Ambassador  at 
Eome: 

"I  desire  to  send  you  as  Ambassador  to  St.  Petersburg. 
St.  Petersburg  is  at  this  moment  and  bids  fair  to  continue 


356  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

to  be  for  at  least  a  year,  the  most  important  post  in  the 
diplomatic  service,  from  the  standpoint  of  work  to  be  done, 
and  you  come  in  the  category  of  public  servants  who  desire 
to  do  public  work,  as  distinguished  from  those  whose  de- 
sire is  merely  to  occupy  public  place — a  class  for  whom  I 
have  no  particular  respect.  I  wish  in  St.  Petersburg  a  man 
who,  while  able  to  do  all  the  social  work,  able  to  entertain 
and  meet  the  Eussians  and  his  fellow  diplomats  on  equal 
terms,  able  to  do  all  the  necessary  plush  business — business 
which  is  indispensable — can  do  in  addition,  the  really  vital 
and  important  thing.  .  .  .  The  trouble  with  our  ambassa- 
dors in  stations  of  real  importance  is  that  they  totally  fail 
to  give  us  real  help  and  real  information,  and  seem  to  think 
that  the  life  work  of  an  ambassador  is  a  kind  of  glorified 
pink  tea  party. ' ' 

The  second  was  to  Eichard  Harding  Davis,  under  date 
of  January  3,  1905,  in  response  to  a  letter  from  him  giving 
his  views  and  estimates  of  various  American  diplomats 
whom  he  had  encountered  in  foreign  lands : 

"  There  are  a  large  number  of  well-meaning  ambassadors 
and  ministers,  and  even  consuls  and  secretaries,  who  belong 
to  what  I  call  the  pink  tea  type,  who  merely  reside  in  the 
service  instead  of  working  in  the  service,  and  these  I  intend 

to  change  whenever  the  need  arises.    The  Minister  to 

is  a  nice  man  with  an  even  nicer  wife.  He  has  been  eight 
years  in  the  service.  He  is  polite  to  people,  gives  nice  little 
dinners,  etc.,  etc.  During  all  that  time  it  has  never  made 
one  atom  of  real  difference  to  the  country  whether  he  was 
in  or  out.  He  is  in  the  service  for  his  own  advantage,  not 
for  the  good  of  the  service,  although  he  does  all  the  secon- 
darily important  work  well;  and  in  all  probability  I  shall 
change  him  and  promote  some  man  who  during  all  that  time 
has  done  really  hard  work  in  a  place  where  there  is  no  pink 
tea  possibility.  .  .  . 

1  i  I  shall  not  make  a  fetish  of  keeping  a  man  in,  but  if  a 
man  is  a  really  good  man  he  will  be  kept  in.  A  pink  tea 
man  shall  stay  in  or  go  out,  just  as  I  find  convenient.    Of 


ILLUMINATING  LETTERS  ON  VARIOUS  SUBJECTS      357 

course,  most  places  at  embassies  and  legations  are  pink  tea 
places.  A  few  are  not,  and  in  these  we  need  real  men,  and 
these  real  men  shall  be  rewarded.' ' 


In  November,  1904,  Frederick  MacMonnies,  the  sculptor, 
wrote  from  Prance  to  the  President  expressing  a  wish  to 
make  a  statuette  of  him.  Eeplying,  on  November  19,  the 
President  wrote : 

"I  have  just  received  your  very  kind  note,  and  of  course 
I  shall  be  delighted  to  have  you  make  the  little  statue  or 
statuette  that  you  desire,  for,  my  dear  sir,  I  think  that  any 
American  President  would  be  glad  to  have  an  American 
sculptor  like  you  or  St.  Gaudens  do  such  a  piece  of  work. 
But  before  sending  you  over  the  things  you  would  like  I 
want  to  point  out  something.  You  say  that  you  like  that 
photograph  of  me  jumping  a  fence,  and  apparently  intend 
to  use  that  as  a  model ;  but  you  ask  me  for  my  soldier  suit. 
Now,  of  course,  I  do  not  jump  fences  in  my  khaki  and  with 
sword  and  revolver  in  my  belt — as  a  matter  of  fact  I  rarely 
wore  my  sword  at  all  in  the  war — and  if  you  want  to  make 
me  jumping  a  fence  I  must  send  you  my  ordinary  riding 
things.  It  seems  to  me  it  would  be  better  to  put  me  in 
khaki  and  not  to  have  me  jumping  the  fence.  Horses  I 
jump  fences  with  have  short  tails.  The  horses  I  rode  in 
the  war  had  long  tails ;  and,  by  the  way,  as  soon  as  I  got 
down  to  active  work  they  looked  much  more  like  Reming- 
ton's cavalry  horses  than  like  the  traditional  war  steed  of 
the  story  books.  Now,  which  way  do  you  want  to  make  that 
statuette  ?    It  seems  to  me  it  would  be  better  in  uniform. ' ' 

The  statuette  was  made  and  reached  the  White  House  in 
June  following.  In  acknowledging  it,  the  President  wrote 
on  June  5 : 

"Mrs.  Roosevelt  and  I  are  delighted  with  the  statuette; 
and,  my  dear  fellow,  to  have  a  bronze  of  me  by  MacMonnies 
really  makes  me  feel  as  if  I  were  a  pretty  considerable  per- 
sonage !    I  have  always  been  grateful  to  you  and  St.  Gau- 


358  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

dens  for  just  existing,  for  it  is  a  big  asset  on  the  Nation's 
credit  side  that  it  should  have  produced  you  both. ' ' 

When  the  statuette  was  presented  to  the  President,  he 
said: 

"I  now  feel  myself  a  really  great  man.  The  distinction 
of  i being  done'  by  either  St.  Gaudens  or  MacMonnies  might 
flatter  anybody.  I  had  always  hoped  to  have  something  in 
my  possession  by  MacMonnies,  but  it  never  occurred  to  me 
that  I  should  have  something  by  MacMonnies  of  me.  The 
statuette  is  exactly  as  I  should  like  to  have  it — a  cavalry 
horse,  the  rough  rider  clothes  and  the  emblematic  support 
to  the  whole.' ' 

For  several  years  President  Koosevelt,  with  the  cordial 
and  enthusiastic  cooperation  of  Augustus  Saint-Gaudens, 
made  persistent  efforts  to  have  the  artistic  quality  of  our 
coinage  improved.  While  he  was  unable  to  accomplish  all 
that  he  wished,  some  notable  results  were  achieved.  He 
greatly  admired  the  sculptor's  work,  especially  the  eques- 
trian statue  of  General  Sherman  which  stands  at  the  Fifth 
Avenue  entrance  to  Central  Park  in  New  York  City.  Writ- 
ing of  this  to  Saint-Gaudens,  under  date  of  August  3,  1903, 
he  said : 

"To  my  mind  your  Sherman  is  the  greatest  statue  of  a 
commander  in  existence.  But  I  can  say  with  all  sincerity 
that  I  know  of  no  man — of  course  of  no  one  living — who 
could  have  done  it.  To  take  grim,  homely,  old  Sherman, 
the  type  and  ideal  of  a  democratic  general,  and  put  with  him 
an  allegorical  figure  such  as  you  did,  could  result  in  but  one 
of  two  ways — a  ludicrous  failure  or  striking  the  very  highest 
note  of  the  sculptor's  art.  Thrice  over  for  the  good  fortune 
of  your  countrymen,  it  was  given  you  to  strike  this  highest 
note." 

For  making  the  usual  Inauguration  Medal  which  is  struck 
for  every  new  President,  Saint-Gaudens  was  selected,  and 
when  the  medal  was  received  the  President,  on  July  8,  1905, 
wrote  to  him : 


ILLUMINATING  LETTERS  ON  VARIOUS  SUBJECTS      359 

"Beally  I  do  not  know  whether  to  thank  most  Frank 
Millet,  who  first  put  it  into  my  rather  dense  head  that  we 
ought  to  have  a  great  artist  to  design  these  medals,  or  to 
thank  you  for  consenting  to  undertake  the  work.  My  dear 
fellow,  I  am  very  grateful  to  you,  and  I  am  very  proud  to 
have  been  able  to  associate  you  in  some  way  with  my  ad- 
ministration. I  like  the  medals  immensely ;  but  that  goes 
without  saying,  for  the  work  is  eminently  characteristic  of 
you.  I  thank  heaven,  we  have  at  last  some  artistic  work 
of  permanent  worth,  done  for  the  Government. 

"I  don't  want  to  slop  over;  but  I  feel  just  as  if  we  had 
suddenly  imported  a  little  of  Greece  of  the  fifth  or  fourth 
centuries  B.  C.  into  America ;  and  am  very  proud  and  very 
grateful  that  I  personally  happened  to  be  the  beneficiary. 
I  like  the  special  bronze  medal  particularly. ' ' 

The  success  of  Saint-Gaudens  with  the  Inauguration 
Medal  led  to  a  conversation  between  the  sculptor  and  the 
President  in  regard  to  the  improvement  of  the  coinage  in 
which  the  sculptor  expressed  the  belief  that  the  Greek  coins 
offered  the  best  models.  The  President  took  up  the  subject 
with  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  obtained  from  him 
an  agreement  to  employ  Saint-Gaudens  to  submit  designs 
for  the  gold  coins,  which  was  done.  Writing  to  Saint- 
Gaudens  on  November  6, 1905,  the  President  said  in  regard 
to  these  designs : 

"I  want  to  make  a  suggestion.  It  seems  to  me  worth 
while  to  try  for  a  really  good  coinage;  though  I  suppose 
there  will  be  a  revolt  about  it !  I  was  looking  at  some  gold 
coins  of  Alexander  the  Great  today,  and  I  was  struck  by 
their  high  relief.  Would  it  not  be  well  to  have  our  coins  in 
high  relief,  and  also  to  have  the  rims  raised?  The  point  of 
having  the  rims  raised  would  be,  of  course,  to  protect  the 
figure  on  the  coin ;  and  if  we  have  the  figures  in  high  relief, 
like  the  figures  on  the  old  Greek  coins,  they  will  surely  last 
longer.    What  do  you  think  of  this  ? ' ' 

Writing  again  to  Saint-Gaudens  on  November  14,  1905, 
the  President  said ; 


360  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

"I  have  summoned  all  the  Mint  people,  and  I  am  going  to 
see  if  I  cannot  persuade  them  that  coins  of  the  Grecian  type 
but  with  the  raised  rim  will  meet  the  commercial  needs  of 
the  day.  Of  course  I  want  to  avoid  too  heavy  an  outbreak 
of  the  mercantile  classes,  because  after  all  it  is  they  who  do 
use  the  gold.  If  we  can  have  an  eagle  like  that  on  the 
Inauguration  Medal,  only  raised,  I  should  feel  that  we  would 
be  awfully  fortunate.  Don  't  you  think  that  we  might  accom- 
plish something  by  raising  the  figures  more  than  at  present 
but  not  as  much  as  in  the  Greek  coins  1  Probably  the  Greek 
coins  would  be  so  thick  that  modern  banking  houses,  where 
they  have  to  pile  up  gold,  would  simply  be  unable  to  do  so. 
How  would  it  do  to  have  a  design  struck  off  in  a  tentative 
fashion — that  is,  to  have  a  model  made?  I  think  your 
Liberty  idea  is  all  right.  Is  it  possible  to  make  a  Liberty 
with  that  Indian  feather  head-dress  %  Would  people  refuse 
to  regard  it  as  a  Liberty?  The  figure  of  Liberty  as  you 
suggest  would  be  beautiful.  If  we  get  down  to  bed-rock 
facts,  would  the  feather  head-dress  be  any  more  out  of 
keeping  with  the  rest  of  Liberty  than  the  canonical  Phry- 
gian cap  which  never  is  worn  and  never  has  been  worn  by 
any  free  people  in  the  world T" 

To  this  Saint-Gaudens  replied  on  November  22, 1905,  say- 
ing :  "I  can  perfectly  well  use  the  Indian  head-dress  on  the 
figure  of  Liberty.    It  should  be  very  handsome. ' 9 

From  the  outset  of  the  President's  efforts  the  authorities 
of  the  United  States  Mint  displayed  strenuous  opposition, 
raising  objection  after  objection  to  the  designs  submitted 
by  Saint-Gaudens.  In  a  letter  to  him,  on  January  6,  1906, 
the  President  referred  to  this  obstructive  attitude : 

"I  have  seen  Shaw  about  that  coinage  and  told  him  that 
it  was  my  pet  baby.  We  will  try  it  anyway,  so  you  go  ahead. 
Shaw  was  really  very  nice  about  it.  Of  course  he  thinks  I 
am  a  mere  crack-brained  lunatic  on  the  subject,  but  he  said 
with  great  kindness  that  there  was  always  a  certain  number 
of  gold  coins  that  had  to  be  stored  up  in  vaults,  and  that 
there  was  no  earthly  objection  to  having  those  coins  as 


INAUGURATION  MEDAL,  1905 
Made  directly  from  the  medal  designed  by  Augustus  Saint-Gaudens 


Obverse  of  the  ten-dollar  gold  piece,  in  high  relief, 
and  before  the  addition  of  the  head-dress,  on 
President  Roosevelt's  suggestion 


Obverse  of  the  ten-dollar  gold  piece,  with  the  Roose- 
velt feather  head-dress.  Before  the  relief  was 
radically  lowered  for  minting 


The  high  relief  form  of  the  flying  eagle  for  the 
twenty-dollar  gold  piece  ultimately  used,  but  in 
much  lower  relief.     Reverse  of  coin 


The  standing  eagle  design  for  the  twenty-dollar 
gold  piece,  but  ultimately  used  only  for  the  ten- 
dollar  gold  piece  and  in  much  lower  relief 


COINAGE  DESIGNS  BY  AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS,  1906 
Collected  by  Homer  Saint-Gaudens.    Photographs  by  DeW.  C.  Ward 


ILLUMINATING  LETTERS  ON  VARIOUS  SUBJECTS     361 

artistic  as  the  Greeks  could  desire.  (I  am  paraphrasing  his 
words,  of  course.)  I  think  it  will  seriously  increase  the 
mortality  among  the  employes  of  the  mint  at  seeing  such  a 
desecration,  but  they  will  perish  in  a  good  cause ! ' ' 

When  Saint-Gaudens  sent  his  models  for  the  twenty- 
dollar  gold  coin  the  President  wrote  to  him  on  December  20, 
1906: 

"  Those  models  are  simply  immense — if  such  a  slang 
way  of  talking  is  permissible  in  reference  to  giving  a  mod- 
ern nation  one  coinage  at  least  which  shall  be  as  good  as 
that  of  the  ancient  Greeks.  I  have  instructed  the  Director 
of  the  Mint  that  these  dies  are  to  be  reproduced  just  as 
quickly  as  possible  and  just  as  they  are.  It  is  simply  splen- 
did. I  suppose  I  shall  be  impeached  for  it  in  Congress, 
but  I  shall  regard  that  as  a  very  cheap  payment  !" 

The  President  succeeded  in  getting  the  Indian  feather 
head-dress  adopted  and  expressed  his  joy  thereat  in  a  letter 
to  Saint-Gaudens  on  March  14,  1907 : 

4 '  Many  thanks  for  your  letter  of  the  12th  instant.  Good ! 
I  have  directed  that  be  done  at  once.  I  am  so  glad  you  like 
the  head  of  Liberty  with  the  feather  head-dress.  Keally, 
the  feather  head-dress  can  be  treated  as  being  the  conven- 
tional cap  of  Liberty  quite  as  much  as  if  it  was  the  Phrygian 
cap ;  and,  after  all,  it  is  our  Liberty — not  what  the  ancient 
Greeks  and  Eomans  miscalled  by  that  title — and  we  are 
entitled  to  a  typically  American  head-dress  for  the  lady." 

Saint-Gaudens  died  in  August,  1907,  and  the  last  stages 
of  the  work  were  supervised  by  his  assistant,  Henry  Hering. 
The  coins  as  finally  struck  were  far  inferior  to  those  de- 
signed by  Saint-Gaudens,  because  of  their  lowered  relief, 
changes  in  the  lettering  and  numerals,  and  careless  repro- 
duction, but  none  the  less  they  marked  a  distinct  artistic 
progress  in  the  national  coinage. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

INAUGURATED  PRESIDENT— DEATH  OF  JOHN  HAY 

The  attendance  at  the  Inauguration  exercises  in  March, 
1905,  exceeded  all  previous  records.  It  was  estimated  that 
fully  500,000  people  were  in  the  city.  The  weather  was  ex- 
ceptionally fine  for  the  season,  and  thus  favorable  for  the 
parade  which  numbered  35,000  men  and  was  three  and  a 
half  hours  passing  the  reviewing  stand  upon  which  the 
President  stood.  Roosevelt's  correspondence  contains 
much  interesting  matter  relating  to  the  exercises.  On  the 
night  before  the  exercises  he  received  this  memorable  letter : 

Department  of  State, 

Washington,  March-3,  1905. 
Dear  Theodore: 

The  hair  in  this  ring  is  from  the  head  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln. Dr.  Taft  cut  it  off  the  night  of  the  assassination,  and 
I  got  it  from  his  son — a  brief  pedigree. 

Please  wear  it  to-morrow;  you  are  one  of  the  men  who 
most  thoroughly  understand  and  appreciate  Lincoln. 

I  have  had  your  monogram  and  Lincoln's  engraved  on 
the  ring. 

Longas,  O  utinam,  bone  dux,  ferias, 
Praestes  Hesperiae.* 

Yours  affectionately, 

John  Hay. 

To  a  telegram  of  congratulation  from  Elihu  Eoot,  h6 
replied  on  March  6,  1905 : 

Bear  Elihu: 
I  appreciate  the  telegram.     No  one  did  more  than  you 

*  Horace,    Odes,   IV,   V :    i '  Mayest    thou,  Good  Captain,  give  long  holiday 
to  Hesperia ! ' ' 

362 


\ 


INAUGURATED  PRESIDENT— JOHN  HAY'S  DEATH      363 

have  done  to  make  my  first  term  a  success  and  I  thank  you 
now  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart,  my  dear  fellow. 
With  love  to  you  and  yours, 

Your  friend, 
(Signed)  Theodore  Eoosevelt. 
P.  S.  The  night  before  the  inauguration  John  Hay  did 
such  a  characteristically  nice  thing.  He  sent  me  a  ring 
containing  some  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  hair,  cut  from  his 
head  after  he  was  assassinated,  and  with  my  initials  and  his 
engraved  on  the  ring;  saying  he  wished  me  to  wear  it  when 
I  took  the  oath.  Naturally  no  present  could  have  pleased 
me  more. 

On  the  same  date  he  wrote  to  E.  B.  Eoosevelt,  in  New 
York: 

Dear  Uncle  Rob: 

It  was  peculiarly  pleasant  having  you  here.  How  I  wish 
Father  could  have  lived  to  see  it  too !  You  stood  to  me  for 
him  and  for  all  that  generation,  and  so  you  may  imagine 
how  proud  I  was  to  have  you  here. 

Ever  yours, 
(Signed)      Theodore  Eoosevelt. 

In  his  Inaugural  Address,  which  was  one  of  the  briefest 
he  ever  delivered,  President  Eoosevelt  laid  most  stress 
upon  the  two  subjects  which  occupied  first  place  in  his 
mind — national  preparedness  and  social  and  industrial  jus- 1 
tice.  "We  wish  peace,"  he  said,  "but  we  wish  the  peace 
of  justice,  the  peace  of  righteousness.  We  wish  it  because 
we  think  it  is  right  and  not  because  we  are  afraid.  No  weak 
nation  that  acts  manfully  and  justly  shall  ever  have  cause 
to  fear  us,  and  no  strong  power  should  ever  be  able  to  single 
us  out  as  a  subject  for  insolent  aggression.' '  The  growth 
in  wealth  and  population  of  the  country  during  a  century 
and  a  half,  had  produced  perils  the  very  existence  of  which 
it  was  impossible  that  our  forefathers  should  foresee.  "The 
conditions  which  have  told  for  our  marvelous  material  well- 
being,  which  have  developed  to  a  very  high  degree  our 


364  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

energy,  self-reliance  and  individual  initiative,  have  also 
brought  the  care  and  anxiety  inseparable  from  the  accumu- 
lation of  great  wealth  in  industrial  centers.  .  .  .  There  is 
no  good  reason  why  we  should  fear  the  future,  but  there  is 
every  reason  why  we  should  face  it  seriously,  neither  hid- 
ing from  ourselves  the  gravity  of  the  problems  before  us 
nor  fearing  to  approach  those  problems  with  the  unbending, 
unflinching  purpose  to  solve  them  aright.' ' 

A  long  letter  to  Sir  George  Otto  Trevelyan,  in  England, 
March  9, 1905,  with  whom  he  maintained  an  intimate  corre- 
spondence for  many  years,  contains  an  account  of  the 
Inauguration  which  is  interesting  as  revealing  the  Presi- 
dent's personal  impressions  of  the  event: 

'  '  Well,  I  have  just  been  inaugurated  and  begun  my  second 
term.  Of  course,  I  greatly  enjoyed  inauguration  day,  and 
indeed  I  have  thoroughly  enjoyed  being  President.  But  I 
believe  I  can  also  say  that  I  am  thoroughly  alive  to  the 
tremendous  responsibilities  of  my  position.  Life  is  a  long 
campaign  where  every  victory  merely  leaves  the  ground 
free  for  another  battle,  and  sooner  or  later  defeat  comes  to 
every  man,  unless  death  forestalls  it.  But  the  final  defeat 
does  not  and  should  not  cancel  the  triumphs,  if  the  latter 
have  been  substantial  and  for  a  cause  worth  championing. 

"It  has  been  peculiarly  pleasant  to  me  to  find  that  my 
supporters  are  to  be  found  in  the  overwhelming  majority 
among  those  whom  Abraham  Lincoln  called  the  plain 
people.  As  I  suppose  you  know,  Lincoln  is  my  hero.  He 
was  a  man  of  the  people  who  always  felt  with  and  for  the 
people,  but  who  had  not  the  slightest  touch  of  the  dema- 
gogue in  him.  It  is  probably  difficult  for  his  countrymen' 
to  get  him  exactly  in  the  right  perspective  as  compared 
with  the  great  men  of  other  lands.  But  to  me  he  does  seem 
to  be  one  of  the  great  figures,  who  will  loom  ever  larger  as 
the  centuries  go  by.  His  unfaltering  resolution,  his  quiet, 
unyielding  courage,  his  infinite  patience  and  gentleness, 
and  the  heights  of  disinterestedness  which  he  attained 
whenever  the  crisis  called  for  putting  aside  self,  together 


INAUGURATED  PRESIDENT— JOHN  HAY'S  DEATH      365 

with  his  far-sighted,  hard-headed  common  sense,  point  him 
out  as  just  the  kind  of  chief  who  can  do  most  good  in  a 
democratic  republic  like  ours. 

"Having  such  an  admiration  for  the  great  rail-splitter, 
it  has  been  a  matter  of  keen  pride  to  me  that  I  have  ap- 
pealed peculiarly  to  the  very  men  to  whom  he  most  ap- 
pealed and  who  gave  him  their  heartiest  support.  I  am  a 
college  bred  man,  belonging  to  a  well-to-do  family,  so  that, 
as  I  was  more  than  contented  to  live  simply,  and  was  for- 
tunate to  marry  a  wife  with  the  same  tastes,  I  have  not 
had  to  make  my  own  livelihood ;  though  I  have  always  had 
to  add  to  my  private  income  by  work  of  some  kind.  But 
the  farmers,  lumbermen,  mechanics,  ranchmen,  miners,  of 
the  North,  East,  and  West  have  felt  that  I  was  just  as  much 
in  sympathy  with  them,  just  as  devoted  to  their  interests, 
and  as  proud  of  them  and  as  representative  of  them,  as  if 
I  had  sprung  from  among  their  own  ranks ;  and  I  certainly 
feel  that  I  do  understand  them  and  believe  in  them  and  feel 
for  them  and  try  to  represent  them  just  as  much  as  if  I  had 
from  earliest  childhood  made  each  day's  toil  pay  for  that 
day's  existence  or  achievement.  How  long  this  feeling 
toward  me  will  last  I  cannot  say.  It  was  overwhelming  at 
the  time  of  the  election  last  November,  and  I  judge  by  the 
extraordinary  turnout  for  the  Inauguration  it  is  over- 
whelming now.  Inasmuch  as  the  crest  of  the  wave  is  in- 
variably succeeded  by  the  hollow,  this  means  that  there  will 
be  a  reaction.  But  meanwhile  I  shall  have  accomplished 
something  worth  accomplishing,  I  hope. 

"I  wish  you  could  have  been  here  on  Inauguration  Day, 
for  I  should  think  the  ceremonies,  if  such  they  can  be  called, 
would  have  interested  you.  The  Secretary  of  State,  John 
Hay,  was  Lincoln  's  private  secretary,  and  the  night  before 
the  Inauguration  he  gave  me  a  ring  containing  some  of 
Lincoln's  hair,  cut  from  his  head  just  after  he  was  assassi- 
nated nearly  forty  years  ago ;  and  I  wore  the  ring  when  I 
took  my  oath  of  office  next  day.  I  had  thirty  members  of 
my  old  regiment  as  my  special  guard  of  honor,  riding  to 
and  from  the  Capitol.    And  in  the  parade  itself,  besides  the 


366  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

regular  Army  and  Navy  and  the  National  Guard,  there 
was  every  variety  of  civic  organization,  including  a  dele- 
gation of  coal  miners  with  a  banner  recalling  that  I  had 
settled  the  anthracite  coal  strike ;  Porto  Eicans  and  Philip- 
pine scouts ;  old  style  Indians,  in  their  war  paint  and  with 
horses  painted  green  and  blue  and  red  and  yellow,  with 
their  war  bonnets  of  eagles '  feathers  and  their  spears  and 
tomahawks,  followed  by  the  new  Indians,  the  students  of 
Hampton  and  Carlisle ;  sixty  or  seventy  cowboys,  farmers ' 
clubs ;  mechanics '  clubs — everybody  and  everything.  Many 
of  my  old  friends  with  whom  I  had  lived  on  the  ranches  and 
worked  in  the  round-ups  in  the  early  days  came  to  see  me 
inaugurated. ' ' 

Writing  on  March  9,  1905,  to  Gen.  Leonard  Wood,  who 
was  at  Manila,  he  said: 

"Well,  the  inauguration  went  off  splendidly  and  I  am 
getting  along  with  no  more  than  the  usual  and  normal 
amount  of  worry  which  every  President  must  have.  Con- 
gress does  from  a  third  to  a  half  of  what  I  think  is  the 
minimum  that  it  ought  to  do,  and  I  am  profoundly  grateful 
that  I  get  as  much.  Next  year  I  believe  we  shall  get  im- 
proved tariff  arrangements  for  the  Philippines.  Thank 
Heaven,  we  can  now  make  a  start  in  the  railroad  matters ! 
But  of  course,  it  is  one  long  fight  and  worry.  However,  I 
am  not  complaining.  Taking  it  on  the  whole  I  have  gotten 
an  astonishing  proportion  of  what  I  set  out  to  get.  When 
I  became  President  three  years  ago  I  made  up  my  mind  that 
I  should  try  for  a  fleet  with  a  minimum  strength  of  forty 
armor-clads;  and  though  the  difficulty  of  getting  what  I 
wished  has  increased  from  year  to  year  I  have  now  reached 
my  mark  and  we  have  built  or  provided  for  twenty-eight 
battle-ships  and  twelve  armored  cruisers.  This  navy  puts 
us  a  good  second  to  France  and  about  on  a  par  with  Ger- 
l  many ;  and  ahead  of  any  other  power  in  point  of  material, 
except,  of  course,  England.  For  some  years  now  we  can 
afford  to  rest  and  merely  replace  the  ships  that  are  worn 
out  or  become  obsolete,  while  we  bring  up  the  personnel. ' ' 


INAUGURATED  PRESIDENT— JOHN  HAY'S  DEATH      367 

An  example  of  Roosevelt's  sympathetic  aid  to  authors 
appears  in  the  following  correspondence  with  Booth  Tar- 
kington.  Writing  to  him  on  March  9,  1905,  the  President 
said: 

"I  like  'In  the  Arena'  so  much  that  I  must  write  to  tell 
you  so.  I  particularly  like  the  philosophy  of  the  Preface 
and  the  first  story.  But  I  like  all  the  stories.  Mrs.  Pro- 
thero  does  not  come  within  the  ken  of  my  own  experiences, 
but  the  other  comedies  and  pitiful  tragedies  are  just  such 
as  I  myself  have  seen. 

"Do  let  me  know  when  you  get  to  Washington  again." 


In  replying  Mr.  Tarkington  wrote : 

"It  is  a  tremendous  pleasure  to  know  that  you  read  and 
liked  my  political  stories.  The  Preface  was  almost  directly 
your  suggestion.  When,  in  last  December,  I  had  the  honor 
of  lunching  with  you,  you  spoke  of  the  danger  that  my  pur- 
pose in  these  stories  might  be  misunderstood,  and  that 
exhibiting  too  much  of  the  uglier  side  might  have  no  good 
effect.  So  I  prefixed  the  Preface,  hoping  that  if  you  hap- 
pened to  see  it  you  would  believe  that  the  Professor  was  at 
least  trying  to  do  his  best." 

The  death  of  John  Hay,  on  July  1,  1905,  was  a  cause  of 
keen  grief  to  Roosevelt  which  found  expression  in  many 
of  his  letters.  They  had  been  personal  friends  for  many 
years  before  he  became  President,  &nd  their  intimate  offi- 
cial association  developed  their  friendship  into  a  deep  and 
tender  affection.  Differing  widely  in  many  of  their  char- 
acteristics, each  had  a  full  appreciation  of  the  other's  qual- 
ities, and  each  supplemented  the  other,  the  two  working 
always  harmoniously,  even  joyously,  together.  Socially, 
they  met  constantly.  Every  Sunday  morning,  on  his  re- 
turn from  church,  the  President  dropped  in  at  Secretary 
Hay's  house  for  an  hour's  chat.  Sometimes  it  was  with 
Hay  alone;  at  other  times  Secretary  Taft,  or  Secretary 
Root,  or  both  would  be  present.    He  was  a  fortunate  man 


368  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

who  was  honored  with  an  invitation  to  be  present  at  these 
gatherings,  for  he  was  then  permitted  to  behold  the  work- 
ings of  the  National  Government  from  its  innermost  side. 
Usually  it  was  the  comic  aspect  which  predominated  in  the 
revelation,  for  the  Presidents  prevailing  sense  of  humor 
was  shared  by  his  colleagues.  I  was  thus  honored  on  sev- 
eral occasions,  and  invariably  Hay  contributed  something 
that  was  especially  apt  and  worth  repeating.  I  may,  I  think, 
without  indiscretion,  introduce  here  an  instance.  Secretary 
Taft  was  present  on  this  occasion,  and  the  subject  under 
consideration  was  the  Philippine  Islands.  "I  see,"  said 
Taft, i  l  that  the  anti-imperialists  are  changing  their  ground 
about  the  Islands.  They  have  been  saying  heretofore  that 
we  should  not  have  stayed  there  after  the  battle  of  Manila ; 
that  we  should  get  out  of  them  and  leave  them  to  their  fate ; 
and  that  they  are  doing  infinite  harm  to  us  and  to  our  insti- 
tutions, because  in  ruling  them  against  their  will  we  are 
violating  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  destroying 
our  own  love  of  liberty.  Now  they  say  that  we  ought  to 
give  them  away,  or  sell  them  to  Germany  or  Japan  or  any 
nation  that  will  take  them  off  our  hands."  "That,"  said 
Hay,  "reminds  me  of  the  young  woman  who  had  got  re- 
ligion and  was  telling  her  experience  in  conference  meet- 
ing. Wishing  to  give  proof  of  the  thoroughness  of  her  con- 
version, she  said:  'When  I  found  that  my  jewelry  was 
dragging  me  down  to  hell,  I  gave  it  all  to  my  sister. '  ' ' 

With  Hay's  sickness  and  absence  from  the  country  these 
gatherings  were  interrupted  and  they  ceased,  of  course, 
with  his  death.  It  was  natural  that  his  colleagues  in  the 
Cabinet,  as  well  as  the  President,  should  feel  his  loss  keen- 
ly. On  the  day  following  his  death  the  President  gave  out 
for  publication  this  statement:  "My  sense  of  deep  per- 
sonal loss,  great  though  it  is,  is  lost  in  my  sense  of  the  be- 
reavement to  the  whole  country  in  Mr.  Hay's  death.  I  was 
inexpressibly  shocked,  as  every  one  was,  for  all  of  us,  in- 
cluding Mr.  Hay's  immediate  family,  had  supposed  that  all 
immediate  danger  was  over,  and  I  had  been  hoping  that 
the  rest  during  the  summer  would  put  him  again  in  good 


INAUGURATED  PRESIDENT— JOHN  HAY'S  DEATH      369 

health  by  the  fall.  The  American  people  have  never  had 
a  greater  Secretary  of  State  than  John  Hay,  and  his  loss 
is  a  national  calamity. ' ' 

Writing  to  the  President,  from  New  York,  Mr.  Boot  said : 
"I  am  completely  broken  up  by  Hay's  death.    Dear  old 
boy,  he  was  right  about  himself  after  all. 

"I  must  send  you  a  word  of  sympathy  and  condolence. 
I  know  how  true  your  affection  for  him  was  and  how  deeply 
you  will  feel  his  loss,  and  how  true  was  his  affection  for 
you — how  loyal  and  sweet  the  relation.  Ah  me !  The  old 
times  are  passing." 

From  many  letters  which  the  President  wrote  at  the 
time  the  following  extracts  are  taken: 

July  15, 1905. 
To  the  Rt.  Hon.  James  Bryce,  London,  England: 

"John  Hay's  loss  was  to  me  a  personal  one  in  the  sense 
which  could  have  been  true  of  hardly  any  other  man,  for  he 
was  not  only  a  dear  friend  of  mine  but  a  dear  friend  of 
my  father.  The  nation  is  richer  because  he  has  lived ;  and 
he  fell  in  the  harness,  as  I  should  suppose  every  man  would 
wish  to  fall. ' ' 

July  11,  1905. 
To  Senator  Lodge: 

"John  Hay's  death  was  very  sudden  and  removes  from 
American  life  a  man  whose  position  was  literally  unique. 
The  country  was  the  better  because  he  lived,  for  it  was  a 
fine  thing  to  have  set  before  our  young  men  the  example 
of  success  contained  in  the  career  of  a  man  who  had  held 
so  many  and  such  important  public  positions,  while  there 
was  not  in  his  nature  the  slightest  touch  of  the  demagogue, 
and  who  in  addition  to  his  great  career  in  political  life  had 
also  left  a  deep  mark  in  literature.  His  'Life  of  Lincoln ' 
is  a  monument,  and  of  its  kind  his  'Castilian  Days'  is  per- 
fect. This  is  all  very  sad  for  Mrs.  Hay.  Personally  his 
loss  is  very  great  to  me  because  I  was  very  fond  of  him, 


370  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

and  as  you  know  always  stopped  at  his  house  after  church 
on  Sunday  to  have  an  hour's  talk  with  him." 

July  18,  1905. 
To  Senator  'Lodge: 

"I  particularly  like  what, you  said  about  John  Hay,  and 
every  word  of  it  was  well  deserved.  He  is  one  of  the  men 
whom  we  shall  miss  greatly  all  the  time,  and  our  memories 
of  him  will  be  green  as  long  as  you  and  I  live.  But  I  have 
not  quite  your  feeling  about  his  death,  so  far  as  making 
us  melancholy  is  concerned.  You  have  often  said  that  the 
epitaph  on  Wolfe  was  the  finest  thing  ever  written,  and  I 
cordially  agree  with  you.  But  Wolfe  was  still  young  and 
one  could  mourn  his  loss.  John  Hay,  however,  died  within 
a  very  few  years  of  the  period  when  death  comes  to  all  of 
us  as  a  certainty,  and  I  should  esteem  any  man  happy  who 
lived  till  65  as  John  Hay  has  lived,  who  saw  his  children 
marry,  his  grandchildren  born,  who  was  happy  in  his  home 
life,  who  wrote  his  name  clearly  in  the  record  of  our  times, 
who  rendered  great  and  durable  services  to  the  Nation 
both  as  statesman  and  writer,  who  held  high  public  posi- 
tions, and  died  in  the  harness  in  the  zenith  of  his  fame. 
When  it  comes  our  turn  to  go  out  into  the  blackness,  I  only 
hope  the  circumstances  will  be  as  favorable." 

July  11,  1905. 
To  Ex-Senator  Beveridge: 

"Hay  was  a  really  great  man,  and  the  more  credit  is 
given  him  the  more  I  am  delighted,  while  the  result  at  the 
last  election  showed  how  futile  it  was  for  my  enemies  to 
try  and  draw  the  distinction  between  what  Hay  did  and 
what  I  did.  Whether  I  originated  the  work,  or  whether  he 
did  and  merely  received  my  backing  and  approval,  is  of  no 
consequence  to  the  party,  and  what  is  said  about  it  is  of 
no  earthly  consequence  to  me.  The  same  people  who,  not 
because  they  cared  for  Hay,  but  because  they  hated  me,  in- 
sisted that  everything  of  which  they  approved  in  the  man- 
agement of  the  State  Department  was  due  to  him  will  now 
make  exactly  the  same  claim  in  reference  to  Root  and  will 


INAUGURATED  PRESIDENT— JOHN  HAY'S  DEATH      371 

hope  thereby  to  damage  or  irritate  me,  whereas  in  reality 
they  will  not  be  making  the  slightest  impression  upon  either 
my  fortunes  or  my  temper.  A  year  and  a  half  ago  these 
people  said  that  with  Boot  out  of  the  Cabinet  I  would  be 
wholly  unable  to  run  the  country.  Eoot  has  been  out  a 
year  and  a  half  and  now  when  he  comes  back  they  will  at 
once  forget  the  intervening  eighteen  months  and  make  the 
same  assertion.  They  have  already  forgotten  that  Hay 
was  on  the  other  side  of  the  water  during  these  last  peace 
negotiations;  and,  my  dear  fellow,  why  in  the  name  of 
Heaven  should  I  care? 

"I  wished  Boot  as  Secretary  of  State  partly  because  I 
am  extremely  fond  of  him  and  prize  his  companionship  as 
well  as  his  advice,  but  primarily  because  I  think  that  in 
all  the  country  he  is  the  best  man  for  the  position  and  that 
no  minister  of  foreign  affairs  in  any  other  country  at  this 
moment  in  any  way  compares  with  him.  Nobody  can  praise 
him  too  highly  to  suit  me ;  and  right  away  he  will  begin  to 
help  me  in  connection  with  the  Venezuelan  and  Santo  Do- 
mingan  affairs.  As  for  which  of  us  gets  the  credit  for  set- 
tling them,  I  honestly  think  you  will  find  Boot  quite  as 
indifferent  as  I  am.  What  we  want  is  to  get  them  settled, 
and  settled  right/' 

July  18,  1905. 
To  G.  v.  L.  Meyer,  Ambassador  to  Russia: 

" Hay's  death  was  a  severe  personal  loss,  to  me  and  to 
every  one  who  knew  him,  for  no  more  loyal,  lovable  and 
upright  man  ever  existed,  and  as  a  public  man  he  stood 
literally  alone.  America  was  the  richer  because  he  had 
lived.  As  for  his  death,  I  am  mourning;  but  surely  there 
is  not  one  of  us  who  would  not  be  glad  to  die  as  he  did, 
still  in  the  harness,  with  his  children  and  his  grandchildren 
around  him,  and  with  so  great  a  record  of  public  service. 
I  have  never  been  able  to  feel  that  the  man  who  died  well 
on  in  years  with  a  great  and  well  earned  record  of  victory 
behind  him,  and  still  in  the  flush  of  his  triumph,  was  unfor- 
tunate. But  it  is  very  hard  for  those  he  leaves,  and  above 
all  for  his  wife." 


372  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

The  President,  very  soon  after  Hay's  death,  offered  the 
position  of  Secretary  of  State  to  Elihu  Root,  who  accepted 
it.  Writing  to  Senator  Lodge  on  July  11,  1905,  the  Presi- 
dent said: 

"I  hesitated  a  little  between  Root  and  Taft,  for  Taft  as 
you  know  is  very  close  to  me.  But  as  soon  as  I  began  seri- 
ously to  think  it  over  I  saw  there  was  really  no  room  for 
doubt  whatever,  because  it  was  not  a  choice  as  far  as  the 
Cabinet  was  concerned  between  Root  and  Taft,  but  a  choice 
of  having  both  instead  of  one.  I  was  not  at  all  sure  that 
Root  would  take  it,  although  from  various  hints  I  had  re- 
ceived I  thought  the  chances  at  least  even.  To  my  great 
pleasure  he  accepted  at  once  and  was  evidently  glad  to  ac- 
cept and  to  be  back  in  public  life  and  in  the  Cabinet  in  such 
a  position.  He  will  be  a  tower  of  strength  to  us  all.  I  not 
only  hope  but  believe  that  he  will  get  on  well  with  the  Sen- 
ate, and  he  will  at  once  take  a  great  burden  off  my  mind  in 
connection  with  various  subjects,  such  as  Santo  Domingo 
and  Venezuela.  For  a  number  of  months  now  I  have  had 
to  be  my  own  Secretary  of  State,  and  while  I  am  very  glad 
to  be  it  so  far  as  the  broad  outlines  of  the  work  are  con- 
cerned, I  of  course  ought  not  to  have  to  attend  to  the 
details.' ' 

Writing  on  July  29, 1905,  to  Secretary  Taft,  who  was  then 
at  Manila  on  a  visit,  the  President  gave  this  as  the  view 
taken  by  the  more  hysterical  portion  of  our  people  of  Root  's 
appointment : 

"Up  to  the  first  of  July  you  were  the  one  person  in  the 
popular  eye.  Then  you  had  started  for  the  Philippines  and 
Root  suddenly  appeared  on  the  stage,  and  the  great  Ameri- 
can public,  to  use  a  simile  from  the  nursery,  dropped  its 
woolly  horse  and  turned  with  frantic  delight  to  the  new 
cloth  doll.  The  more  lunatic  portion  of  the  press  insisted 
that  I  had  made  a  bargain  by  which  Root  was  to  have  the 
next  Presidency.  The  fact  that  to  make  such  a  bargain 
would  show  both  of  us  to  be  not  only  scoundrels  but  idiots 
was  treated  as  an  unimportant  detail.     By  the  time  you 


X 

INAUGURATED  PRESIDENT— JOHN  HAY'S  DEATH      373 

come  back  they  will  probably  drop  Boot  like  dross  and  take 
you  up  as  a  new  returned  hero  from  the  Orient  and  they 
will  then  vividly  portray  Boot's  bitter — and  entirely  imagi- 
nary— chagrin  at  my  having  abandoned  him  for  you." 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

RUSSO-JAPANESE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

The  "crowded"  year  supreme  of  Roosevelt's  official  life 
was  unquestionably  that  of  1905.  In  no  other  does  the 
record  of  his  activity  and  achievement  stand  so  high ;  in  no 
other  did  he  exemplify  more  completely  the  dictum  of 
Henry  Adams  that  he  was  "pure  act."  He  arranged,  di- 
rected and  brought  to  a  successful  conclusion  the  Ports- 
mouth Peace  Conference  which  put  an  end  to  the  war 
between  Japan  and  Eussia.  He  arranged  also  the  Algeciras 
Convention  which  resulted,  in  1906,  in  preventing  war  be- 
tween France  and  Germany  over  possessions  in  Morocco. 
He  took  charge  of  affairs  in  Santo  Domingo  and,  in  the 
failure  of  the  Senate  to  act,  brought  about  a  peaceful  solu- 
tion of  the  troubles  between  that  island  and  its  foreign 
creditors.  He  personally  directed  the  vast  amount  of  offi- 
cial business  connected  with  the  task  of  getting  the  ma- 
chinery of  organization  in  motion  for  building  the  Panama 
Canal.  These  were  the  dominating  items  in  the  record  of 
his  year's  activity.  There  were  many  of  less  magnitude 
which  will  be  mentioned  in  the  course  of  this  narrative. 

The  crowning  achievement  of  the  year  was,  of  course, 
the  ending  of  the  war  between  Russia  and  Japan.  The 
broad  outlines  of  the  methods  which  Roosevelt  pursued  in 
accomplishing  this  memorable  result  are  matters  of  common 
knowledge,  but  the  inner  history  of  the  incident  has  never 
been  revealed.  For  the  first  time  it  is  now  accessible  to  his 
biographer  in  Roosevelt's  official  and  private  correspon- 
dence, and  can,  not  improperly,  be  laid  before  the  world. 
As  it  is  told  in  that  correspondence,  it  is  virtually  his  own 
story  of  what  he  did,  illuminated  with  expositions  of  his 
own  views  and  motives  at  the  time,  and  with  his  own  esti- 

374 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  375 

mates  and  graphic  pen  portraits  of  the  chief  personages 
with  whom  he  was  engaged  in  what  to  most  men  would 
have  been  a  hopeless  struggle  almost  from  the  outset.  He 
himself  had  serious  doubt  at  many  stages  as  to  his  abifity 
to  succeed,  but  he  never  permitted  himself  to  be  discour- 
aged, and  his  resourcefulness  proved  more  than  equal  to  all 
emergencies. 

He  was  at  the  time  his  own  Secretary  of  State,  for  Sec- 
retary Hay  was  absent  from  his  post  in  the  last  stages  of 
the  illness  which  ended  in  his  death  before  the  peace  was 
secured.  Every  step  in  the  negotiations,  extending  over  a 
period  of  three  months,  was  taken  by  the  President  in  per- 
son without  the  aid  of  any  of  his  most  trusted  counselors, 
for  Secretary  Root  had  resigned  from  the  Cabinet  many 
months  earlier  and  Secretary  Taft  was  absent  on  a  visit 
to  the  Philippines. 

In  no  other  task  of  his  life  was  the  abnormal  energy, 
mental  and  physical,  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  put  to  a  se- 
verer test,  and  from  none  did  he  emerge  more  triumph- 
antly. His  activity  was  as  tireless  as  his  resourcefulness 
was  inexhaustible.  One  reads  the  thick  volumes  of  his  cor- 
respondence with  amazement  bordering  on  incredulity. 
It  is  incredible  that  one  man  could  do  so  much  and  do  it  so 
easily  and  so  well.  He  was  not  only  steadily  and  irre- 
sistibly forcing  the  two  warring  nations  into  a  conference, 
but  he  was  at  the  same  time  untiringly  bringing,  or  en- 
deavoring to  bring,  other  nations  like  England,  France,  and 
Germany  to  the  support  of  his  efforts.  If  Russia  balked 
and  showed  signs  of  refusal,  he  persuaded  the  Kaiser  to 
bring  pressure  upon  the  Czar  in  the  interest  of  peace.  If 
Japan  showed  similar  signs,  England  was  appealed  to,  to 
bring  pressure  upon  her.  In  the  end  Germany  alone  really 
helped,  and  Roosevelt  gave  unstinted  praise  to  the  Kaiser 
ever  afterwards  for  what  he  did  then. 

Early  in  the  year  1905  President  Roosevelt  became  seri- 
ously impressed  with  the  strain  which  the  war  was  bring- 
ing upon  the  civilized  world  and  that  some  means  should 
be  found  for  arresting  it.    "From  all  sources  of  informa- 


376  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

tion  at  hand,"  he  says  in  his  'Autobiography,'  "I  grew 
most  strongly  to  believe  that  a  further  continuation  of  the 
struggle  would  be  a  very  bad  thing  for  Japan,  and  an  even 
worse  thing  for  Eussia.  Japan  was  already  suffering  ter- 
ribly from  the  drain  upon  her  men,  and  especially  upon  her 
resources,  and  had  nothing  further  to  gain  from  continua- 
tion of  the  struggle;  its  continuance  meant  to  her  more 
loss  than  gain,  even  if  she  were  victorious.  Russia,  in 
spite  of  her  gigantic  strength,  was,  in  my  judgment,  apt  to 
lose  even  more  than  she  had  already  lost  if  the  struggle 
continued. ' ' 

Writing  to  Sir  George  Otto  Trevelyan,  on  March  9,  1905, 
he  gave  the  date  of  his  first  move  for  peace : 

"Six  weeks  ago  I  privately  and  unofficially  advised  the 
Russian  Government,  and  afterwards  repeated  the  advice 
indirectly  through  the  French  Government,  to  make  peace, 
telling  them  that  of  course  if  they  were  sure  their  fleet 
could  now  beat  the  Japanese,  and  if  they  were  sure  they 
could  put  and  keep  six  hundred  thousand  men  in  Man- 
churia, I  had  nothing  to  say;  but  that  in  my  own  belief 
the  measure  of  their  mistaken  judgment  for  the  last  year 
would  be  the  measure  of  their  mistaken  judgment  for  the 
next  if  they  continued  the  war,  and  that  they  could  not 
count  upon  as  favorable  terms  of  peace  as  the  Japanese 
were  still  willing  to  offer  if  they  refused  to  come  to  terms 
until  the  Japanese  armies  were  north  of  Harbin.' * 

On  the  same  date,  he  wrote  to  King  Edward  of  England : 
"It  seems  to  me  that  if  Russia  had  been  wise  she  would 
have  made  peace  before  the  Japanese  took  Mukden.  If  she 
waits  until  they  are  north  of  Harbin  the  terms  will  cer- 
tainly be  worse  for  her.  I  had  this  view  unofficially  con- 
veyed to  the  Russian  Government  some  weeks  ago;  and  I 
think  it  would  have  been  to  their  interest  if  they  had  then 
acted  upon  it." 

In  a  confidential  letter  to  Secretary  Hay,  who  was  abroad 
for  his  health,  the  President  wrote  on  March  30, 1905 : 


EUSSO-JAPANESE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  377 

"Cassini  (Russian  Ambassador)  and  Takahira  (Japa- 
nese Minister)  have  been  to  see  me  about  peace  negotiations, 
bnt  we  do  not  make  much  progress  as  yet  because  neither 
side  is  willing  to  make  the  first  advance.  The  Japanese 
say,  quite  rightly,  that  they  will  refuse  to  deal  unless  on 
the  word  of  the  Czar,  because  it  is  evident  that  no  one 
minister  has  power  to  bind  the  government.  Cassini  an- 
nounces to  me  that  officially  the  government  is  bent  upon 
war,  but  that  privately  he  would  welcome  peace.  The 
Kaiser  has  had  another  fit  and  is  now  convinced  that 
France  is  trying  to  engineer  a  congress  of  the  nations,  in 
which  Germany  will  be  left  out.  What  a  jumpy  creature 
he  is,  anyhow!  Besides  sending  to  me  he  is  evidently  en- 
gaged in  sending  to  all  kinds  of  other  people.  I  am  against 
having  a  Congress  to  settle  the  peace  terms. 

"The  Chinese  obviously  desire  the  war  to  go  on  in  the 
hope  that  both  combatants  will  ultimately  become  com- 
pletely exhausted.  The  European  powers  want  peace.  I 
have  an  idea  that  the  English  would  be  by  no  means  over- 
joyed if  the  Japs  took  Vladivostok.  It  looks  as  if  the 
foreign  powers  did  not  want  me  to  act  as  peacemaker.  I 
certainly  do  not  want  to  myself.  I  wish  the  Japs  and  Rus- 
sians could  settle  it  between  themselves,  and  I  should  be 
delighted  to  have  any  one  except  myself  give  them  a  jog 
to  settle  it  between  themselves.  If  France  will  do  it,  it  will 
serve  the  purpose  just  as  well.,, 

A  letter  that  he  wrote  to  the  German  Ambassador,  on 
March  31,  shows  an  early  purpose  on  the  part  of  the  Pres- 
ident to  cultivate  the  good  graces  of  the  Kaiser,  even  if  he 
considered  him  a  " jumpy  creature,"  by  making  him  the 
confidant  of  his  endeavors : 

"I  am  happy  to  tell  you  in  response  to  your  last  note 
that  I  entirely  agree  with  the  Emperor  that  it  is  unwise  for 
the  peace  negotiations,  when  the  time  comes  to  carry  them 
on,  to  be  considered  in  a  congress  of  the  nations.  The  Jap- 
anese Minister  has  informed  me  that  Japan  takes  this  view 
also.     I  informed  the  British  Ambassador  that  this  was 


378  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

my  view,  and  he  told  me  that  he  had  no  doubt  that  the 
British  Government  would  also  take  it. 

"I  saw  the  Kussian  Ambassador,  and  for  your  private  in- 
formation will  say  that  I  told  him  that  in  my  judgment  it 
was  eminently  to  Russia's  interest  to  make  peace,  and  that 
I  thought,  as  regards  the  terms  offered  by  the  Japanese, 
it  would  be  a  case  of  the  sibylline  books ;  that  each  delay,  if 
the  delay  meant  another  Japanese  victory,  would  mean  an 
increase  in  the  onerousness  of  the  terms.' ' 

Another  confidential  letter  to  Secretary  Hay,  under  date 
of  April  2, 1905,  gives  us  an  extremely  entertaining  account 
of  what  was  in  progress  behind  the  scenes : 

"I  have  seen  Cassini  (Russian  Ambassador)  twice,  Taka- 
hira  (Japanese  Minister),  Durand  (British  Ambassador) 
and  Jusserand  (French  Ambassador)  each  once,  and  Speck 
(von  Sternburg,  German  Ambassador)  three  or  four  times 
during  the  past  week.  The  Kaiser  has  become  a  monomaniac 
about  getting  into  communication  with  me  every  time  he 
drinks  three  pen'orth  of  conspiracy  against  his  life  and 
power ;  but  as  has  been  so  often  the  case  for  the  last  year,  he 
at  the  moment  is  playing  our  game — or,  as  I  should  more  po- 
litely put  it,  his  interests  and  ours,  together  with  those  of 
humanity  in  general,  axe  identical.  He  does  not  wish  a  con- 
gress of  the  powers  to  settle  the  Japanese-Russian  busi- 
ness. As  things  are  at  present  I  cordially  agree  with  him, 
and  I  find  that  the  British  and  Japanese  governments  take 
the  same  view.  /The  Kaiser  is  relieved  and  surprised  to 
find  that  this  is  true  of  the  English  government.  He  sin- 
cerely believes  that  the  English  are  planning  to  attack  him 
and  smash  his  fleet,  and  perhaps  join  with  France  in  a  war 
to  the  death  against  him.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  English 
harbor  no  such  intentions,  but  are  themselves  in  a  condition 
of  panic  terror  lest  the  Kaiser  secretly  intend  to  form  an 
alliance  against  them  with  France  or  Russia,  or  both,  to 
destroy  their  fleet  and  blot  out  the  British  Empire  from 
the  map !    It  is  as  funny  a  case  as  I  have  ever  seen  of  mu- 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  379 

tual  distrust  and  fear  bringing  two  peoples  to  the  verge 
of  war. 

"Officially  the  Eussian  government  announces  that  it 
wishes  to  go  on  with  the  war.  Cassini  tells  me,  doubtless 
under  instruction,  that  he  believes  they  would  like  peace 
if  they  can  have  it  on  honorable  terms ;  but  that  they  can  not 
for  a  moment  consider  the  question  of  an  indemnity.  I 
told  him  that  to  my  mind  the  point  was  whether  they  would 
be  willing  to  consider  the  question  of  indemnity  now,  before 
the  Japanese  had  obtained  any  Eussian  territory,  or  would 
wait  until  the  Japanese  had  Harbin  and  Vladivostok,  and 
that  it  was  for  them  to  ponder  whether  or  not,  under  such 
circumstances,  the  Japanese  would  make  the  terms  more  or 
less  onerous.  I  told  Cassini  that  I  was  speaking  sincerely 
in  the  interest  of  Eussia,  not  in  the  interest  of  Japan,  for 
I  believed  that  Japan,  after  the  stunning  overthrow  of  the 
Eussian  Army  at  Mukden,  felt  that  danger  was  past  and 
preferred  to  go  on  with  the  war  unless  all  her  terms  were 
complied  with. 

"  There  has  been  a  very  perceptible  alteration  in  the 
temper  of  the  Japanese  government  and  people,  not  un- 
naturally. They  feel  that  victory  is  theirs  and  that  they 
are  safe  from  outside  interference,  and  they  take  a  dis- 
tinctly higher  tone.  Takahira  told  me  that  the  Japanese 
government,  in  addition  to  the  points  for  which  they  made 
war,  would  insist  upon  an  indemnity ./ 1  told  him  that  I 
was  in  hearty  accord  with  them  as  to  the  points  on  which 
they  had  said  they  felt  they  must  insist  prior  to  the  battle 
of  Mukden,  but  I  would  reserve  judgment  as  to  what  I 
would  say  about  the  indemnity.  It  may  be  that  they  ought 
to  have  it  and  must  have  it,  but  I  did  not  feel  called  upon 
to  express  an  opinion  about  the  matter  at  this  time. 

"Did  you  ever  know  anything  more  pitiable  than  the 
condition  of  the  Eussian  despotism  in  this  year  of  grace? 
The  Czar  is  a  preposterous  little  creature  as  the  absolute 
autocrat  of  150,000,000  people.  He  hasbeen  unable  to  make 
war,  and  he  is  now  unable  to  make  peace/ ' 


380  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

On  the  day  following  the  letter  to  Hay,  above  quoted,  the 
President  started  on  what  he  called  a  "week's  horrid 
anguish  in  touring  through  Kentucky,  Indian  Territory  and 
Texas ;  then  ^ve  weeks '  genuine  pleasure  in  Oklahoma  and 
Colorado  on  a  hunt ;  to  be  followed  in  its  turn  by  three  or 
four  cindery,  sweaty  and  drearily  vociferous  days  on  the 
way  home.,,  While  on  his  hunt  the  President  was  in  con- 
stant touch  by  telegraph  with  Secretary  Taft  who,  under 
his  direction,  was  continuing  the  negotiations  with  the  Rus- 
sian  Ambassador  and  the  Japanese  Minister.  Not  entire- 
ly satisfied  with  the  way  in  which  the  affair  was  advancing, 
he  telegraphed  to  Taft  on  April  27,  1905,  from  Colorado : 
"I  shall  come  in  from  my  hunt  and  start  home  May  8  in- 
stead of  May  15  as  I  had  intended.  This  will  be  put  upon 
ground  of  general  condition  of  public  service  in  Washing- 
ton so  as  to  avoid  talk  about  Russian- Japan  matter/ ' 
adding : 

"Meanwhile  ask  Takahira  whether  it  would  not  be  ad- 
visable for  you  to  see  Cassini  from  me  and  say  that  purely 
confidentially,  with  no  one  else  to  know  at  all,  I  have  on  my 
own  motion  directed  you  to  go  to  him  and  see  whether  the 
two  combatants  cannot  come  together  and  negotiate  direct. 
Say  that  in  my  judgment  it  is  far  better  that  there  should 
be  no  reservations  on  either  side,  that  I  cannot  help  feeling 
that  they  can  make  an  honorable  peace  and  that  it  seems 
to  me  it  would  be  better  as  a  preliminary  to  have  an  abso- 
lutely free  talk  between  the  representatives  of  the  two 
powers  without  any  intermediary  at  all.  If  Takahira  ap- 
proves of  this,  act  accordingly. ' ' 

This  was  done  by  Secretary  Taft,  who  telegraphed  that 
the  Japanese  Minister  had  approved  and  had  given  a  state- 
ment of  peace  terms.  On  April  30,  1905,  the  President 
replied : 

* '  I  emphatically  agree  with  the  Japanese  view  that  there 
should  be  direct  negotiations  on  all  terms  of  peace  between 
Russia  and  Japan.  I  heartily  agree  with  the  Japanese 
terms  of  peace,  in  so  far  as  they  include  Japan  having  the 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  381 

control  over  Korea,  retaining  possession  of  Port  Arthur 
and  Dalny,  and  operating  the  Harbin,  Mukden,  Port  Arthur 
Kailway,  while  restoring  Manchuria  to  China  with  the  guar- 
antee of  the  open  door.  As  to  the  proposed  indemnity  and 
the  cession  of  Russian  territory  I  am  not  yet  prepared 
to  express  myself  definitely;  and,  indeed,  do  not  as  yet 
feel  called  upon  to  express  myself  definitely.  Therefore, 
in  approving  Japan's  position  as  to  direct  negotiations 
with  Russia  on  all  points  concerning  the  peace,  I  do  not 
wish  to  commit  myself  one  way  or  the  other  on  the  indem- 
nity and  cession  of  territory  matters." 

The  President  did  not  find  matters  in  a  hopeful  condi- 
tion when  he  arrived  in  Washington,  for  on  May  13,  1905, 
he  wrote  to  Sir  George  Otto  Trevelyan:  "For  the  moment 
I  have  been  unable  to  do  anything  in  getting  Russia  and 
Japan  together.  I  like  the  Russian  people,  but  I  abhor  the 
Russian  system  of  government  and  I  cannot  trust  the  word 
of  those  at  the  head.  <  The  Japanese  I  am  inclined  to  wel- 
come as  a  valuable  factor  in  the  civilization  of  the  future.  ; 
But  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  they  should  be  free  from 
prejudice  against  and  distrust  of  the  white  race." 

Two  days  later,  May  15, 1905,  he  wrote  to  Senator  Lodge 
in  London: 

"It  is  evident  that  Japan  is  now  anxious  to  have  me  try 
to  make  peace.  Just  as  Russia  suffered  from  cockyness, 
and  has  good  cause  to  rue  her  refusal  to  take  my  advice  and 
make  peace  after  Port  Arthur  fell,  so  Japan  made  an  error 
in  becoming  over-elated  in  turn  after  Mukden  and  then  re- 
jecting my  advice  to  make  peace.  Takahira,  and  I  think 
the  Japanese  Foreign  Office,  agreed  with  my  position,  but 
the  war  party,  including  the  army  and  navy,  insisted  upon 
an  indemnity  and  cession  of  territory,  and  rather  than  ac- 
cept such  terms  the  Russians  preferred  to  have  another 
try  with  Rojestvensky's  fleet.  I  told  the  Japanese  that  if 
there  was  any  reasonable  doubt,  even  if  not  a  very  great 
doubt,  as  to  the  final  result,  it  was  in  my  judgment  wise 
to  build  a  bridge  of  gold  for  the  beaten  enemy.    They  then 


382  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

refused  to  accept  my  view.  Now  they  have  come  around 
to  it,  being  evidently  much  disturbed  by  the  presence  of 
Kojestvensky's  fleet,  which  in  material  is  somewhat  superior 
to  theirs.  For  all  their  courage  they  are  cautious,  and  I 
think  they  understand  what  I  meant  when  I  told  them  that 
though  I  believe  the  chances  at  least  two  to  one  in  their 
favor,  yet  that  inasmuch  as  this  meant  that  there  was  one 
chance  in  three  or  four  that  they  would  be  beaten,  and 
therefore  crushed  to  earth,  it  would  pay  them  to  secure  the 
proofs  of  victory  without  pressing  their  opponents  to  de- 
spair. ' ' 

No  progress  was  made  during  the  ensuing  fortnight,  and 
on  May  27, 1905,  came  the  news  of  the  great  Japanese  naval 
victory  in  the  battle  of  the  Sea  of  Japan.  To  Baron  Kentaro 
Kaneko,  official  representative  of  the  Japanese  Govern- 
ment in  the  United  States,  who,  from  New  York,  had  ex- 
pressed his  joy  in  a  jubilant  message  to  the  President,  the 
latter  replied :  "  No  wonder  you  are  happy !  Neither  Tra- 
falgar nor  the  defeat  of  the  Spanish  Armada  was  as  com- 
plete— as  overwhelming.  As  Commander  Takashita  left 
my  office  this  morning,  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  looking 
after  him,  said,  'Well,  there  goes  a  happy  man.  Every 
Japanese,  but  perhaps  above  all  every  Japanese  naval  man, 
must  feel  as  if  he  was  treading  on  air  to-day. '  ' ' 

The  first  overtures  for  peace  came  from  Japan.  They 
reached  the  President  four  days  after  the  news  of  the  naval 
victory.  This  fact,  hitherto  unrevealed,  is  firmly  estab- 
lished in  Koosevelt's  correspondence.  Full  and  explicit  de- 
tails of  all  his  proceedings  in  the  matter  were  set  forth  in 
long  letters  that  he  wrote  in  June,  1905,  to  Senator  Lodge 
in  London,  from  which  I  shall  quote  freely  in  compiling  the 
story.  In  one  of  these  (June  16)  he  said:  "I  made  my 
first  move  in  the  peace  negotiations  on  the  request  of  Japan 
on  the  following  telegram  handed  to  me  by  Takahira;  it 
had  been  sent  to  him  by  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  of 
Japan,  on  the  31st  of  May."  (As  this  telegram  is  of  real 
historical  value,  it  is  reproduced  here  in  full) : 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  383 

"With  reference  to  your  telegram  of  the  28th  of  May, 
you  are  hereby  instructed  to  say  to  the  President  that 
Japan's  signal  naval  victory  having  completely  destroyed 
the  force  upon  which  Russia  confidently  relied  to  turn  the 
tide  of  the  war,  it  may  be  reasonably  expected  that  the 
Government  of  St.  Petersburg  will  turn  now  its  attention 
to  the  question  of  peace.  The  Japanese  Government  still 
adhere  to  the  conviction  that  the  peace  negotiations,  when 
they  come,  should  be  conducted  directly  and  exclusively 
between  the  belligerents,  but  even  in  such  case  friendly 
assistance  of  a  neutral  will  be  essential  in  order  to  bring 
them  together  for  the  purpose  of  such  negotiation  and  the 
Japanese  Government  would  prefer  to  have  that  office  un- 
dertaken by  a  neutral  in  whose  good  judgment  and  wise 
discretion  they  have  entire  confidence.  You  will  express 
to  the  President  the  hope  of  the  Japanese  Government  that 
in  actual  circumstance  of  the  case  and  having  in  view  the 
changed  situation  resulting  from  the  recent  naval  battle,  he 
will  see  his  way  directly  and  entirely  of  his  own  motion  and 
initiative  to  invite  the  two  belligerents  to  come  together  for 
the  purpose  of  direct  negotiation  and  you  will  add  that  if 
the  President  is  disposed  to  undertake  the  service,  the  Jap- 
anese Government  will  leave  it  to  him  to  determine  the 
course  of  procedure  and  what  other  Power  or  Powers,  if 
any,  should  be  consulted  in  the  matter  of  suggested  invita- 
tion. You  will  ask  the  President  whether  in  his  opinion 
the  Japanese  Government  can,  with  a  view  to  facilitate  the 
course  (?)  advantageously  take  any  other  or  further  action 
in  the  matter  and  you  will  make  it  entirely  clear  to  the 
President  that  the  Japanese  Government  have  no  intention 
by  the  present  communication  (?)  to  approach  Russia 
either  directly  or  indirectly  on  the  subject  of  peace." 

fl  was  amused/'  wrote  the  President,  "by  the  way  in 
which  they  asked  me  to  invite  the  two  belligerents  together 
directly  on  my  own  motion  and  initiative.  It  reminded  me 
of  the  request  for  contributions  sent  by  campaign  commit- 
tees to  office  holders  wherein  they  are  asked  to  make  a 


384  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

1  voluntary  contribution  of  ten  per  cent'  of  their  salary. 
It  showed  a  certain  naivete  on  the  part  of  the  Japanese." 

After  receiving  this  telegram  the  President  saw  Cassini, 
the  Eussian  Ambassador.  "I  told  him,"  he  wrote  to  Lodge, 
' '  to  say  to  the  Czar  that  I  believed  the  war  absolutely  hope- 
less for  Russia ;  that  I  earnestly  desired  that  she  and  Japan 
should  come  together  and  see  if  they  could  not  agree  upon 
terms  of  peace ;  and  that  I  should  like  to  propose  this  if  I 
could  get  the  assent  of  Russia  and  then  of  Japan,  which 
latter  I  thought  I  would  be  able  to  get.  I  could  not  be  sure 
that  Cassini  would  tell  this  to  the  Czar,  for  he  is  afraid  of 
saying  what  is  disagreeable;  but  I  hardly  know  what  to 
do  else.,, 

Almost  immediately  following  the  naval  battle,  the 
Kaiser  began  to  exert  himself  for  peace.  On  June  3,  1905, 
the  German  Ambassador  handed  this  note  to  the  President : 

"The  Emperor  has  just  informed  me  that  in  the  interest 
of  all  concerned  he  thinks  Russia  ought  to  effect  peace.  He 
has  requested  me  to  tell  you  that  he  is  ready  to  silently 
support  any  efforts  which  you  may  feel  inclined  to  make  in 
the  interest  of  peace.  For  both  belligerents  he  considers 
this  way  of  mediation  the  chief  est  and  most  unselfish." 

On  the  same  date,  the  American  Ambassador  at  Berlin 
sent  this  message  to  the  President: 

i  *  The  German  Emperor  has  asked  me  to  say  to  you  that 
he  considers  the  situation  in  Russia  so  serious  that,  when 
the  truth  is  known  at  St.  Petersburg  in  regard  to  the  re- 
cent defeat,  the  life  of  the  Czar  will  be  in  danger,  and  the 
gravest  disorders  likely  to  occur.  The  Emperor  of  Ger- 
many has  written  to  the  Czar,  therefore,  urging  him  to 
take  immediate  steps  toward  peace.  The  Emperor  said/to 
me:  4I  called  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  Americans 
were  the  only  nation  regarded  by  the  Japanese  with  the 
highest  respect,  and  that  the  President  of  the  United  States 
is  the  right  person  to  appeal  to  with  the  hope  that  he  may 
be  able  to  bring  the  Japanese  to  reasonable  proposals.  I 
suggested  to  the  Czar  to  send  for  Meyer  and  charge  him 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  385 

with  a  message  to  President  Roosevelt.  Please  inform  the 
President  privately,  from  me  personally,  of  the  steps  that 
I  have  taken  which  I  hope  will  be  for  the  benefit  of  the 
world.'  " 

Precisely  what  the  Kaiser  wrote  to  the  Czar  in  regard  to 
Roosevelt  as  a  mediator  was  revealed  in  January,  1920, 
when  a  batch  of  his  letters  to  the  Czar  was  found  in  Petro- 
grad  and  published.  In  one  of  them,  dated  June  3,  1905, 
appears  this  passage: 

/*'I  may,  perhaps,  turn  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  no 
doubt  the  Japanese  have  the  highest  regard  for  America 
before  all  other  nations.  Because  this  mighty,  rising 
power,  with  its  tremendous  fleet,  is  next  to  them.  If  any- 
body in  the  world  is  able  to  influence  the  Japanese  and  to 
induce  them  to  be  reasonable  in  their  proposals,  it  is  Presi- 
dent Roosevelt.  Should  it  meet  with  your  approval  I  could 
easily  place  myself — privately — en  rapport  with  him,  as 
we  are  very  intimate ;  also  my  ambassador  there  is  a  friend 
of  his/ Besides,  you  have  Mr.  Meyer,  whom  I  know  since 
years,  who  has  my  fullest  confidence;  you  may  send  for 
him,  talk  with  him  openly;  he  is  most  discreet  and  trust- 
worthy, a  charming  causeur  with  agreeable  manners. ' ' 

(  The  Kaiser's  proposal  did  not  meet  the  President's 
views,  for  he  "did  not  desire  to  be  asked  to  squeeze  out  of 
Japan  favorable  terms  for  Russia."  )  Furthermore,  "I 
could  not  be  sure  that  Cassini  would  really  tell  his  home 
Government  what  I  had  been  doing  or  Lamsdorff  would 
tell  the  Czar  what  I  wished."  He  decided  to  have  Meyer, 
the  American  Ambassador  at  St.  Petersburg,  see  the  Czar 
in  person,  and  accordingly  sent  him,  on  June  5,  a  cable 
message  instructing  him  at  once  to  call  on  His  Majesty, 
saying  he  did  so  by  personal  direction  of  the  President,  and 
repeat  to  him  what  the  President  had  said  to  Cassini. 
Meyer  was  also  to  say  to  His  Majesty:  /"If  Russia  will 
consent  to  such  a  meeting  the  President  will  try  to  get 
Japan's  consent,  acting  simply  on  his  own  initiative  and 


386  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

not  saying  that  Eussia  has  consented,  and  the  President 
believes  he  will  succeed." 

It  will  be  noticed  that  in  this  message  to  the  Czar  the 
President  was  conforming  strictly  to  Japan's  wishes  abont 
the  "initiative." 

On  receipt  of  the  President's  message,  Ambassador 
Meyer  sought  and  obtained  an  audience  with  the  Czar,  and 
in  a  letter  to  the  President  under  date  of  June  9,  he  de- 
scribed the  interview  at  length.  The  Czar  admitted  that 
he  had  received  a  letter  from  the  German  Emperor  urging 
him  to  make  peace,  and  said:  /"If  it  will  be  absolutely  se- 
cret as  to  my  decision  should  Japan  decline,  or  until  she 
gives  her  consent,  I  will  now  consent  to  your  President's 
plan  that  we  (Eussia  and  Japan)  have  a  meeting,  without 
intermediaries,  in  order  to  see  if  we  can  make  peace." 
After  asking  if  the  President  knew  or  could  find  out  what 
Japan's  terms  were,  the  Czar  continued:  "You  have  come 
at  the  psychological  moment ;  as  yet  no  foot  has  been  placed 
on  Eussian  soil,  but  I  realize  that  at  almost  any  moment 
they  can  make  an  attack  on  Saghalien.  Therefore  it  is  im- 
portant that  the  meeting  should  take  place  before  that  oc- 
curs." 

The  Czar,  apparently,  communicated  at  once  with  the 
Kaiser,  for  on  June  11,  the  German  Ambassador  at  Wash- 
ington, handed  this  message  to  the  President,  under  direc- 
tions from  Berlin : 

"The  suspicious  Czar  has  written  to  the  Emperor  stating 
that  if  Japan's  demands  are  too  exorbitant  or  too  humilia- 
ting to  Eussia  he  would  have  to  break  off  negotiations  at 
once.  The  Emperor  thinks  that  the  best  thing  to  start 
them  well  would  be  if  you  could  ask  Japan  to  submit  her 
demands  to  you  for  consideration  before  they  are  for- 
warded to  Petersburg.  Jn  case  they  really  should  be 
exorbitant  and  too  humiliating  you  could  have  them  held 
back.  He  reiterates  that  he  will  do  all  in  his  power  to  make 
the  Czar  accept  any  demands  which  you  consider  to  be 
within  the  bounds  of  moderation/   So  far  as  Japan  is  con- 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  387 

cerned,  the  Emperor  thinks  that  the  negotiations  better 
rest  in  your  hands  alone.' ' 

The  President  next  had  what  he  called  "a  perfectly  char- 
acteristic experience,  showing  the  utterly  loose  way  in 
which  the  Russian  Government  works.' '  On  June  6,  1905, 
Cassini  showed  him  a  despatch  from  his  government  in 
which  they  made  no  answer  to  Roosevelt's  proposition, 
said  they  would  not  ask  either  peace  or  mediation,  but  re- 
quested the  President  to  exercise  a  moderating  influence 
on  the  demands  of  Japan  and  find  out  what  those  demands 
were.  On  the  following  day,  Meyer  sent  to  the  President  a 
message  which  directly  reversed  the  Cassini  message  by 
stating:  "The  Emperor  authorized  me  to  say  that  he  ac- 
cepts and  consents  to  the  President's  proposition  with  the 
understanding  that  it  is  to  be  kept  absolutely  secret,  and 
that  the  President  is  to  act  on  his  own  initiative  in  en- 
deavoring to  obtain  the  consent  of  the  Japanese  Govern- 
ment.'' 

No  information  of  this  message  was  given  to  Cassini  by 
his  government,  and  when  it  was  shown  to  him  he  ques- 
tioned its  accuracy,  saying:  "Meyer  may  have  misinter- 
preted or  forgotten  what  the  Emperor  said."  The  Presi- 
dent, therefore,  had  Cassini 's  assertion  cabled  to  Meyer, 
and  Meyer  obtained  the  authority  of  Lamsdorff,  the  Rus- 
sian Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  for  the  statement  that 
he  had  quoted  the  Czar  correctly.  Roosevelt  at  the  time 
received  various  messages  from  Cassini,  including  a  pro- 
test against  his  seeing  so  much  of  the  Japanese  Minister 
and  representatives  of  the  neutral  forces.  To  this  the 
President  replied  through  the  person  who  brought  it  that 
he  considered  it  impertinent  and  requested  that  it  be  not 
repeated.  "Cassini  also  protested,"  says  the  President, 
"that  I  was  trying  to  make  Russia  move  too  quickly,  and 
was  very  indignant  over  my  order  interning  the  Russian 
ships  at  Manila,  saying  'this  is  not  the  time  to  establish 
new  principles  of  international  law.'  I  had  declined  to 
allow  the  Russian  ships  to  make  any  repairs  that  were 


388  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

rendered  necessary  by  the  results  of  the  battle,  and  then 
had  them  interned.  I  informed  Cassini  that  it  was  pre- 
cisely the  right  time  to  establish  a  new  principle  of  inter- 
national law,  when  the  principle  was  a  good  one,  and  that 
the  principle  is  now  established." 

Having  obtained  the  consent  of  both  belligerents,  Roose- 
velt,  on  June  8,  sent  by  telegraph  an  identical  note  to  each 
of  them  stating  that  the  "  President  feels  that  the  time  has 
come  when  in  the  interest  of  all  mankind  he  must  endeavor 
to  see  if  it  is  not  possible  to  bring  to  an  end  the  terrible 
and  lamentable  conflict  now  being  waged";  assuring  them 
that  with  both  the  "  United  States  has  inherited  ties  of 
friendship  and  good  will";  urging  them  "not  only  for  their 
own  sakes,  but  in  the  interest  of  the  whole  civilized  world 
to  open  direct  negotiations  for  peace  with  one  another"; 
and  offering  to  do  what  he  properly  could,  if  they  felt  that 
his  services  would  be  of  aid,  in  arranging  the  preliminaries 
as  to  the  time  and  place  of  meeting.  As  casting  further 
light  upon  Russian  methods  of  procedure,  the  President 
writes :  ' '  Then  Cassini  must  have  been  told  what  had  hap- 
pened, for  he  called  upon  me  and  notified  me  that  the  Rus- 
sian Government  thanked  me  and  had  adopted  my  sugges- 
tion. I  am  inclined  to  think  that  up  to  that  time  he  had  not 
received  the  message  which  he  then  communicated  to  me, 
that  his  government  had  told  him  nothing  whatever  as  to 
their  attitude  toward  peace." 

The  text  of  the  identical  note  was  published  by  the  Presi- 
dent, and  then  what  he  calls  "a  rather  exasperating  inci- 
dent" occurred.  On  June  10,  1905,  Japan,  through  its 
Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs,  accepted  the  suggestion  of 
the  President  and  declared  that  it  would  appoint  plenipo- 
tentiaries to  meet  those  of  Russia  at  such  time  and  place  as 
might  be  found  mutually  agreeable  "for  the  purpose  of 
negotiating  and  concluding  terms  of  peace  directly  and  ex- 
clusively between  the  two  belligerent  powers."  Cassini, 
in  his  verbal  statement  to  the  President,  "had  accepted 
just  as  unreservedly,"  but,  on  June  12,  there  came  from 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  389 

Lamsdorff  a  cable  message  in  which  he  said  he  had  laid 
the  note  before  his  August  Majesty,  that  His  Majesty  was 
"much  moved  by  the  sentiments  expressed  by  the  Presi- 
dent/ '  and  that  with  regard  to  the  proposed  meeting,  in 
order  to  see  if  it  is  not  possible  for  the  two  powers  to  agree 
to  terms  of  peace,  the  "Imperial  Government  had  no 
objection  in  principle  to  that  endeavor  if  the  Japanese 
Government  expressed  a  like  desire.' ' 

The  effect  of  this  message  is  thus  described  by  the 
President : 

"This  note  is  of  course  much  less  satisfactory  than 
Japan's,  for  it  shows  a  certain  slyness  and  an  endeavor  to 
avoid  anything  like  a  definite  committal,  which  most  nat- 
urally irritated  Japan,  while  at  the  same  time,  as  it  used 
the  very  words  of  my  identical  note,  it  did  not  offer  grounds 
for  backing  out  of  the  negotiations.  But  Japan  now  started 
to  play  the  fool.  It  sent  a  request  for  me  to  get  a  cate- 
gorical answer  from  Eussia  as  to  whether  she  would  ap- 
point plenipotentiaries  who  would  have  full  power  to  make 
peace,  and  hinted  that  otherwise  Japan  did  not  care  for 
the  meeting.  Meanwhile  Russia  had  proposed  Paris  for 
the  place  of  meeting,  and  Japan  Chef  oo.  Each  declined  to 
accept  the  other's  proposition.  I  then  made  a  counter 
proposition  of  The  Hague,  which  was  transmitted  to  both 
Governments.  It  was  crossed,  however,  by  a  proposition 
from  Russia  that  the  meeting  should  take  place  in  Wash- 
ington. Japan  answered  my  proposition  positively  declin- 
ing to  go  to  Europe  and  expressing  its  preference  for  the 
United  States,  as  being  half  way  between  Europe  and  Asia. 
Russia  having  first  suggested  Washington,  I  promptly 
closed  and  notified  both  Japan  and  Russia  that  I  had  thus 
accepted  Washington. ' '/ 

The  succeeding  few  days  were  very  busy  ones  for  the 
President.  He  had  to  soothe  the  Japanese  Ambassador  on 
the  question  of  a  categorical  answer  from  Russia  as  to  the 
full  powers  of  the  Russian  plenipotentiaries  and  convince 
the  Czar  that  having  once  accepted  Washington  as  the 


390  THEODORE  EOOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

meeting  place  he  could  not  change  his  mind  and  induce  the 
President  to  reverse  himself  also.  On  June  15,  he  handed 
to  Cassini  a  memorandum  in  which  he  said  that  he  had 
received  from  Japan  a  statement  of  its  intention  to  clothe 
its  plenipotentiaries  with  full  powers  to  negotiate  and  con- 
clude a  peace,  and  suggested  that  Eussia  do  the  same.  This 
he  showed  to  Takahira  and  explained  to  him  that  he  had 
withdrawn  it  later  from  Cassini  on  receipt  of  a  message 
from  Eussia  saying  that  its  plenipotentiaries  would  have 
full  powers  since  that  was  the  meaning  of  the  title. 

No  sooner  was  this  question  settled  than,  on  June  16, 
1905,  came  a  message  from  Ambassador  Meyer  to  the  ef- 
fect that  Lamsdorff  had  informed  him  that  Eussia  pre- 
ferred The  Hague  for  the  place  of  meeting.  On  the  same 
date  this  bit  of  "inspired"  news  was  sent  by  the  Asso- 
ciated Press  from  St.  Petersburg: 

"The  question  of  the  place  of  meeting  of  the  Eussian 
and  Japanese  representatives  has  been  re-opened  and  there 
is  a  possibility  that  The  Hague  instead  of  Washington  may 
be  selected.  After  the  announcement  that  Washington  had 
been  selected  Eussia  expressed  a  desire  to  have  the  selec- 
tion reconsidered  and  exchanges  to  that  end  are  now  pro- 
ceeding between  Foreign  Minister  Lamsdorff  and  Ambassa- 
dor Meyer  and  Washington.  Eussia's  preference  for  The 
Hague  is  based  on  the  obvious  advantages  that  it  is  en- 
tirely neutralized,  the  capital  of  a  small  state  and  the  site 
of  the  arbitration  court  and  also  by  consideration  of  time." 

The  President's  handling  of  this  situation  was  thorough- 
ly Eooseveltian,  and  resembles  that  which  he  used  with  the 
Kaiser  in  the  Venezuela  incident  of  1902.  In  reply  tet 
Meyer's  message  he  sent  the  following: 

June  16,  1905. 

"You  will  please  immediately  inform  Count  Lamsdorff 
that  I  was  handed  by  Ambassador  Cassini  a  cable  from  him 
dated  June  thirteenth,  which  ran  as  follows:  'As  regards 
the  place  of  the  proposed  meeting  its  choice  is  of  only  sec- 
ondary importance  since  the  plenipotentiaries  of  both  Eus- 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  391 

sia  and  Japan  are  to  negotiate  directly  without  any  partici- 
pation by  third  powers.  If  Paris,  so  desirable  for  many 
reasons,  encounters  opposition,  then  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment gives  the  preference  to  Washington  over  all  other 
cities,  especially  since  the  presence  of  the  President,  initia- 
tor of  the  meeting,  can  exercise  a  beneficent  influence 
toward  the  end  which  we  all  have  in  view.'  Accordingly, 
after  having  received  word  from  Japan  that  she  objected 
to  The  Hague,  and  before  I  received  any  notification  what- 
ever about  The  Hague  from  Russia,  I  notified  Japan  that 
Washington  would  be  the  appointed  place  and  so  informed 
Ambassador  Cassini.  I  then  gave  the  same  announcement 
to  the  public.  It  is,  of  course,  out  of  the  question  for  me 
to  consider  any  reversal  of  this  action  and  I  regard  the 
incident  as  closed,  so  far  as  the  place  of  meeting  is  con- 
cerned. If  Count  Lamsdorff  does  not  acquiesce  in  this 
view,  you  will  please  see  the  Czar  personally  and  read  to 
him  this  cable,  stating  to  Count  Lamsdorff  that  you  are 
obliged  to  make  the  request  because  of  the  extreme  gravity 
of  the  situation.  Explain  to  Count  Lamsdorff  and  if  neces- 
sary to  the  Czar  that  I  am  convinced  that  on  consideration 
they  will  of  their  own  accord  perceive  that  it  is  entirely 
out  of  the  question  for  me  now  to  reverse  the  action  I  took 
in  accordance  with  the  request  of  the  Eussian  Government, 
which  action  has  been  communicated  to  and  acquiesced  in 
by  Japan,  and  has  been  published  to  the  entire  world.' I 

Promptly  on  the  following  day  came  these  two  interest- 
ing responses: 

Petersburg,  June  17,  1905. 
President  Roosevelt, 

Washington. 
Have  just  received  the  following  from  Lamsdorff:  Je 
m'empresse  d 'informer  votre  excellence  que  sa  majeste 
lempereur  ne  voit  aucun  obstacle  au  choix  de  Washington 
pour  la  reunion  et  les  pourparlers  des  plenipotentiaires 
Russes  et  Japonais. 

Meyer. 


392  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Washington,  le  17  Juin,  1905. 
Monsieur  le  President: 

Vu  certains  bruits  repandus  par  la  presse,  j'ai  l'honneur 
de  porter  a  Votre  connaissance  que,  conformement  a  un 
telegramme  officiel  que  je  viens  de  recevoir  a  Finstant  meme, 
Sa  Majest6  FEmpereur,  mon  Auguste  Maitre,  accepte 
definitivement  Washington  comme  lieu  de  reunion  des 
plenipotentiaires  Eusses  et  Japonais  qui  seront  appeles 
a  negocier  les  preliminaires  d'un  traite  de  paix. 

Agreez,  Monsieur  le  President,  1 'assurance  de  ma  plus 
haute  consideration. 

Cassini. 

Eoosevelt's  comments  upon  the  incident  are  both  enter- 
taining and  valuable : 

"I  think  it  is  beautiful  the  way  in  which  Cassini  virtually 
begins  his  note  by  speaking  of  the  rumors  given  currency 
by  the  press,  just  as  if  his  government  had  not  explicitly 
informed  me  that  it  desired  to  change  the  place  from  Wash- 
ington to  The  Hague.  What  I  cannot  understand  about 
the  Eussian  is  the  way  he  will  lie  when  he  knows  perfectly 
well  that  you  know  he  is  lying. 

"It  is  this  kind  of  thing  which  makes  me  feel  rather 
hopeless  about  our  ultimately  getting  peace.  I  shall  do  my 
best,  but  neither  the  Czar  nor  the  Eussian  Government  nor 
the  Eussian  people  are  willing  to  face  the  facts  as  they  are. 
I  am  entirely  sincere  when  I  tell  them  that  I  act  as  I  do 
because  I  think  it  in  the  interest  of  Eussia,  and  in  this  crisis 
I  think  the  interest  of  Eussia  is  the  interest  of  the  entire 
world.  I  should  be  sorry  to  see  Eussia  driven  completely 
off  the  Pacific  coast  and  driven  practically  east  to  Lake 
Baikal,  and  yet  something  like  this  will  surely  happen  if 
she  refuses  to  make  peace.  Moreover,  she  will  put  it  out 
of  the  power  of  any  one  to  help  her  in  the  future  if  she  now 
stands  with  Chinese  folly  upon  her  dignity  and  fancied 
strength.  ^  It  is  a  case  of  the  offer  of  the  sibylline  books. 
I  told  Cassini,  and  through  Delcasse  (French  Foreign  Af- 
fairs Minister)  told  the  Eussian  home  government,  imme- 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  393 

diately  after  Port  Arthur,  that  they  ought  to  make  peace 
at  once.  I  reiterated  this  advice  as  strongly  as  possible 
after  Mukden.  In  each  case  my  advice  was  refused  and  the 
result  is  so  much  the  worse  for  Russia. 
/"  Japan  is  suspicious,  too,  and  does  not  always  act  as  I 
should  ljke  her  to,  but  it  behaves  infinitely  better  than 
Russia/  Of  course,  it  will  make  heavy  demands.  No  power 
could  fail  after  such  astounding  victories. 
/" Remember  that  you  are  to  let  no  one  know  that  in  this 
matter  of  the  peace  negotiations  I  have  acted  at  the  request 
of  Japan  and  that  each  step  has  been  taken  with  Japan's 
foreknowledge,  and  not  merely  with  her  approval  but  with 
her  expressed  desire.  This  gives  rather  a  comic  turn  to 
some  of  the  English  criticisms  to  the  effect  that  my  move 
is  really  in  the  interest  of  Russia  and  not  merely  in  the 
interest  of  Japan,  and  that  Japan  is  behaving  rather  mag- 
nanimously in  going  into  it.  My  move  is  really  more  in  the 
interest  of  Russia  than  of  Japan,  but  it  is  greatly  to  the 
interest  of  Japan  also. 

"Well,  I  do  not  have  much  hope  of  getting  peace,  but  I 
have  made  an  honest  effort,  the  only  effort  which  offered 
any  chance  of  success  at  all." 

"While  holding  the  Czar  inflexibly  to  his  promise  as  to  the 
meeting  place  of  the  Conference,  the  President  was  working 
patiently  and  tirelessly  with  the  Japanese  authorities  to 
keep  them  from  laying  too  much  stress  on  trifles.  Not  only 
did  he  reason  daily  with  Takahira,  the  Japanese  Minister, 
but  he  appealed  directly  to  the  Japanese  Government.  On 
June  16,  1905,  he  sent  a  long  message  to  Mr.  Griscom,  the 
American  Ambassador  at  Tokio,  with  directions  to  com- 
municate it  to  the  Japanese  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs. 
In  this  message  he  said : 

"At  present  the  feeling  is  that  Japan  has  been  frank 
and  straightforward  and  wants  peace  if  it  can  be  obtained 
on  proper  terms,  whereas  Russia  has  shown  a  tendency  to 
hang  back.  It  will  be  a  misfortune  for  Japan,  in  the  judg- 
ment of  the  President,  if  any  action  of  Japan  now  gives 


394  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

rise  to  the  contrary  feeling.  Moreover,  in  the  Presidents 
judgment,  there  is  absolutely  nothing  to  be  gained  by  such 
action  on  the  part  of  Japan.  No  instructions  to  the  pleni- 
potentiaries would  be  of  any  avail  if  they  did  not  intend 
to  make  peace.  But  if,  as  the  President  believes,  the  force 
of  events  will  tend  to  secure  peace  if  once  the  representa- 
tives of  the  two  parties  can  come  together,  then  it  is  ob- 
viously most  unwise  to  delay  the  meeting  for  reasons  that 
are  trivial  or  of  no  real  weight. ' ' 

He  was  far  from  being  confident  of  success  at  this  time. 
Writing  to  Lodge  on  June  16,  1905,  he  said:  "The  more  I 
see  of  the  Czar,  the  Kaiser,  and  the  Mikado,  the  better  I  am 
content  with  democracy,  even  if  we  have  to  include  the 
American  newspaper  as  one  of  its  assets — liability  would  be 
a  better  term.  Kussia  is  so  corrupt,  so  treacherous  and 
shifty,  and  so  incompetent,  that  I  am  utterly  unable  to  say 
whether  or  not  it  will  make  peace,  or  break  off  the  negotia- 
tions at  any  moment.  Japan  is,  of  course,  entirely  selfish, 
though  with  a  veneer  of  courtesy,  and  with  infinitely  more 
knowledge  of  what  it  wants  and  capacity  to  get  it.  I  should 
not  be  surprised  if  the  peace  negotiations  broke  off  at  any 
moment.  Eussia,  of  course,  does  not  believe  in  the  genuine- 
ness of  my  motives  and  words,  and  I  sometimes  doubt 
whether  Japan  does." 

To  Benjamin  Ide  Wheeler  he  wrote,  on  June  17,  1905: 
"I  do  not  know  whether  I  shall  get  peace  out  of  this  ne- 
gotiation or  not.  I  have  awfully  hard  sledding  in  the  effort 
to  get  the  governments  to  come  together,  and  am  exas- 
perated almost  to  the  breaking  point  by  such  an  antic  as 
this  of  Russia  in  now  wishing  to  retract  its  preference  for 
Washington  and  wanting  The  Hague,  which  it  knows  Japan 
will  not  accept.    However,  I  shall  do  my  best." 

The  following  passage  from  a  letter  to  Lodge,  written 
just  after  the  negotiations  had  begun,  is  especially  interest- 
ing, both  psychologically  and  historically.  Note  the  state- 
ment of  a  promised  Rothschild  loan  to  Russia: 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  395 

"I  wish  I  could  tell  you  all  the  funny  details  of  these 
negotiations  of  Takahira  and  Cassini  with  us.  Of  course, 
if  the  Eussians  go  on  as  they  have  gone  ever  since  I  have 
been  President — and  so  far  as  I  can  find  out,  ever  since  the 
Spanish  War — they  are  hopeless  creatures  with  whom  to 
deal.  They  are  utterly  insincere  and  treacherous;  they 
have'no  conception  of  truth,  no  willingness  to  look  facts  in 
the  face,  no  regard  for  others  of  any  sort  or  kind,  no  knowl- 
edge of  their  own  strength  or  weakness ;  and  they  are  help- 
lessly unable  to  meet  emergencies. 

"  About  the  Japanese  I  feel  as  I  always  did.  I  do  not 
pretend  to  know  the  soul  of  the  nation,  or  to  prophesy  as 
to  what  it  will  do  in  the  future.  I  do  not  suppose  I  under- 
stand their  motives,  and  I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  they 
understand  mine — although  I  should  think  they  were  plain 
to  any  people.  Takahira,  as  instructed  by  his  Government, 
has  evidently  wanted  to  feel  his  way  with  me.  His  Gov- 
ernment does  not  quite  like  to  tell  me  what  its  plans  are, 
but  wants  to  develop  them  a  little  at  a  time.  Thus,  they 
asked  me  to  find  out  how  England  feels  as  to  the  terms 
they  should  ask. 

"Naturally,  England  responded  that  it  could  not  say 
until  it  knew  what  the  proposed  terms  were;  and  it  then 
transpired  that  Baron  Eothschild  had  said  he  would  raise 
a  loan  for  Eussia  with  which  Eussia  should  pay  Japan  the 
proposed  indemnity  if  Eussia  could  be  persuaded  to  ac- 
cept peace  on  such  terms.  Evidently  the  Japanese  have 
been  uncertain  whether  the  British  Government  knew  of 
this  offer  or  not,  and  took  the  roundabout  way  through  me 
to  find  out. 

"Of  course,  not  only  Cassini  but  Jusserand  are  very 
gloomy  over  Japan 's  attitude  toward  outside  nations  in 
the  future.  That  Japan  will  have  her  head  turned  to  some 
extent  I  do  not  in  the  least  doubt,  and  I  see  clear  symptoms 
of  it  in  many  ways.  We  should  certainly  as  a  nation  have 
ours  turned  if  we  had  performed  such  feats  as  the  Japanese 
have  in  the  past  sixteen  months;  and  the  same  is  true  of 
any  European  nation/* 


396  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

On  June  15, 1905,  the  President  sent  a  despatch  to  White- 
law  Eeid,  who  had  recently  arrived  in  London  as  the  Ameri- 
can Ambassador  to  Great  Britain,  asking  him  to  sound 
Lord  Lansdowne,  British  Secretary  for  Foreign  Affairs, 
as  to  the  possibility  of  England's  exerting  pressure  on 
Japan  in  the  interest  of  peace.  Two  days  later,  June  17, 
Eeid  replied,  saying  that  he  had  sought  and  obtained  an 
interview  with  Lansdowne  and  that  the  latter  had  said  that 
nothing  could  be  more  abhorrent  to  the  British  Govern- 
ment than  the  thought  that  any  action  of  theirs  could  tend 
to  prolong  bloodshed,  but  he  added  immediately,  it  would 
be  quite  another  thing  at  this  stage  to  bring  any  pressure 
upon  Jap  an— e  specially  when  they  did  not  even  know  what 
Japan's  terms  were  going  to  be. 

On  June  23,  1905,  Eeid  sent  to  the  President  a  confiden- 
tial report  of  a  conversation  which  he  had  had  with  King 
Edward  on  the  preceding  day  at  Ascot,  requesting  that  it 
either  be  destroyed,  or  placed  among  confidential  papers 
accessible  only  to  the  President  himself.  In  this  report  the 
King  was  represented  as  saying  he  thought  it  was  best  to 
let  the  contestants  arrange  their  own  terms  of  peace.  When 
Eeid  spoke  of  the  possibility  of  the  Eussians  being  driven 
out  of  Vladivostok,  the  King  said  at  once:  "They  are  like- 
ly to  be  beaten  again;  it  may  be  going  on  now.''  Then, 
with  great  earnestness,  taking  Eeid  by  the  arm  and  whis- 
pering in  his  ear:  "In  the  strictest  confidence,  between  us 
personally,  not  to  go  to  another  human  being — if  they  don't 
make  peace,  why  should  not  Japan  take  Vladivostok,  and 
be  in  a  position  at  the  end  of  the  war  to  be  magnanimous 
and  give  it  back  ?  Wouldn  't  that  ease  the  final  settlement  f f ' 
When  Eeid  asked  if  he  might  not  let  the  President  have 
this  conversation  confidentially,  the  King  hesitated  a  mo- 
ment and  said:  "Well,  perhaps,  if  you  think  so,  not  to  be- 
come in  any  way  official,  or  be  seen  by  anybody  else.  I 
will  leave  it  to  yon." 

All  this  time  the  President  was  keeping  a  steady  pressure 
on  Eussia  to  convince  the  Eussian  Government  of  the  wis- 
dom  of  making  peace.    On  June  19,  1905,  he  wrote  a  long 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  397 

confidential  letter  to  Ambassador  Meyer  giving  his  reasons 
for  thinking  Russia  should  make  peace  at  once.  In  it  he 
said:  " Peter  the  Great  made  peace  with  the  Turks  by 
surrendering  the  Crimea.  In  1855  Russia  made  peace  with 
the  English,  French  and  Turks  by  a  surrender  of  territory. 
In  either  case,  to  have  insisted  upon  going  on  with  the  war 
would  have  meant  the  conversion  of  a  serious  check  into 
a  possibly  irretrievable  disaster.  The  same  is  true  now. 
In  advising  this  I  speak  for  Russia's  interest  because  on) 
the  point  Russia's  interests  are  the  interests  of  the  world. H 
In  concluding,  he  wrote:  "You  know  Lamsdorif  and  I  do 
not.  If  you  think  it  worth  while,  tell  either  him  or  the  Czar 
the  substance  of  what  I  have  said,  or  show  them  all  or  parts 
of  this  letter.  You  are  welcome  to  do  it.  But  use  your 
own  discretion  absolutely  in  this  matter. 

"Russia  has  not  created  a  favorable  impression  here  by 
the  appearance  of  quibbling  that  there  has  been  both  over 
the  selection  of  the  place  and  over  the  power  of  the  pleni- 
potentiaries whom  Russia  will  appoint.  It  would  be  far 
better  if  she  would  give  an  impression  of  frankness,  open- 
ness and  sincerity.' ' 

A  cable  message  from  the  President  to  Meyer  on  June 
23,  1905,  showed  that  the  "quibbling"  was  not  confined  to 
one  side  of  the  controversy.  He  asked  Meyer  to  suggest 
to  the  Russian  Government  that  it  send  to  him  the  names 
of  the  Russian  plenipotentiaries,  promising  that  they  would 
be  kept  secret  till  Japan  had  done  the  same,  when  the 
President  would  announce  both.  A  further  effort  to  bring 
the  Russian  Government  to  the  point  of  using  plain  speech 
was  then  made  by  the  President.  "The  President  has  re- 
ceived from  the  Japanese  Government  the  assurance  that 
they  will  name  as  plenipotentiaries  men  of  the  highest  rank. 
He  believes  that  they  are  hesitating  because  they  want  to 
be  sure  that  the  Russian  plenipotentiaries  will  also  be  of 
the  highest  rank."  He  reminds  the  Russian  Government 
that  it  failed  to  say,  when  it  consented  to  appoint  pleni- 
potentiaries, that  they  were  to  negotiate  and  conclude  a 


398  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

treaty  of  peace  with  Japan,  and  this  failure  had  "  evidently 
made  Japan  feel  doubtful''  whether  those  plenipotentiaries 
would  really  be  appointed  for  the  purpose.  "  Before  any 
question  of  an  armistice  is  raised  the  President  feels 
strongly  that  this  point  should  be  settled  by  the  naming  of 
plenipotentiaries  with  public  instructions  that  they  are  ap- 
pointed to  conclude  a  treaty  of  peace,  this  conclusion  of 
course  being  subject  to  the  ratification  of  the  treaty  by  the 
respective  home  governments." 

Writing  to  Senator  Knute  Nelson  of  Minnesota,  on  the 
same  date  that  he  made  this  appeal  to  Russia,  the  Presi- 
dent revealed  his  uncertain  state  of  mind  about  the  final 
outcome  of  his  labors:  "I  have  not  an  idea  whether  I  can 
or  can  not  get  peace  between  Russia  and  Japan.  I  have 
done  my  best.  I  have  led  the  horses  to  water,  but  Heaven 
only  knows  whether  they  will  drink  or  start  kicking  one 
another  beside  the  trough." 

A  day  later,  June  24,  1905,  he  sent  a  letter  to  Charle- 
magne Tower,  American  Ambassador  at  Berlin,  which  was 
clearly  designed  to  encourage  the  Kaiser  to  continue  his 
application  of  pressure  to  the  Czar : 

"I  greatly  appreciate  the  Kaiser's  action.  Whether  we 
can  get  the  Japanese  and  Russians  to  make  peace  I  do  not 
know;  but  I  hope  you  will  personally  tell  the  Kaiser  how 
much  I  value  what  he  has  done,  and  that  in  my  judgment 
it  may  be  imperative  to  get  his  aid  in  order  to  make  the 
Czar  conclude  peace.  I  hope  that  the  Japanese  will  be 
moderate  in  what  they  ask,  and  I  shall  endeavor  to  make 
them  moderate;  but  it  must  be  kept  clearly  in  mind  that 
they  are  the  victors ;  that  their  triumph  has  been  complete 
and  overwhelming,  and  that  they  are  entitled  to  demand 
very  substantial  concessions  as  the  price  of  peace.  The 
difficulty  will  come  with  Russia,  for  she  will  find  it  hard  to 
make  up  her  mind  to  give  what  it  is  entirely  right  and 
proper  that  the  Japanese  should  ask." 

Matters  began  to  move  a  little  faster  now,  but  the  Presi- 
dent did  not  relax  his  efforts  to  expedite  them.    On  June 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  399 

26,  1905,  he  sent  a  strong  hint  to  the  Russian  Government 
that  it  should  send  its  best  men  to  the  conference  to  meet 
the  best  men  from  Japan: 

"The  President,  in  accordance  with  the  communication 
from  Count  Lamsdorff  of  the  25th,  has  informed  the  Jap- 
anese Government  that  Russia  consents  to  the  meeting 
taking  place  in  the  first  ten  days  of  August,  but  that  the 
President  hopes  if  possible  the  Japanese  Government  will 
arrange  to  have  its  envoys  here  on  the  first  day  of  August 
as  he  earnestly  desires  there  shall  be  no  delay.  Inform 
Count  Lamsdorff  confidentially  that  the  President  under- 
stands that  the  Japanese  Government  have  under  consid- 
eration as  their  envoys  Baron  Komura,  the  Secretary  of 
Foreign  Affairs,  and  Mr.  Takahira,  Japanese  Minister  at 
Washington.  The  appointment  of  Baron  Komura  repre- 
sents, of  course,  the  very  highest  appointment  that  can  be 
made  by  the  Japanese  Government,  being  equivalent,  for 
instance,  to  my  appointing  Secretary  Hay  under  similar 
circumstances.  I  am  greatly  gratified  at  it,  for  it  shows 
that  Japan  is  sending  her  best  men  with  the  earnest  desire 
to  arrange  for  peace.  I  have  confidentially  informed  the 
Japanese  Government  that  in  all  probability  one  of  the 
Russian  plenipotentiaries  will  be  Nelidoff." 

On  June  30,  1905,  Russia  sent  a  request  to  the  President 
to  get  the  consent  of  Japan  to  an  armistice.  Why  his  ef- 
fort to  secure  it  failed  Roosevelt  explained  to  Meyer  on 
July  7,  1905: 

Jrl  did  my  best  to  get  the  Japanese  to  consent  to  an 
armistice,  but  they  have  refused,  as  I  feared  they  would. 
Lamsdorff 's  trickiness  has  recoiled  upon  the  Russian  Gov- 
ernment. The  Japanese  are  entirely  confident  that  they 
can  win  whatever  they  wish  by  force  of  arms,  whereas  they 
are  deeply  distrustful  of  Russia's  sincerity  of  purpose  in 
these  peace  negotiations.  Russia  cannot  expect  peace  un- 
less she  makes  substantial  concessions,  for  the  Japanese 
triumph  is  absolute  and  Russia's  position  critical  in  the 
extreme./  I  earnestly  hope  the  Czar  will  see  that  he  must 


400  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

at  all  hazards  and  all  cost  make  peace  with  Japan  now  and 
turn  his  attention  to  internal  affairs.  If  he  does  not,  I  be- 
lieve that  the  disaster  to  Eussia  will  be  so  great  that  she 
will  cease  to  count  among  the  great  powers  for  a  genera- 
tion to  come — unless,  indeed,  as  foreshadowed  in  your  last 
letter,  there  is  a  revolution  which  makes  her  count  as  the 
French  did  after  their  revolution. y 

A  letter  to  Senator  Lodge,  July  11,  throws  further  light 
on  the  armistice  request : 

"At  Eussia's  request  I  asked  Japan  for  an  armistice, 
but  I  did  not  expect  that  Japan  would  grant  it,  although 
I  of  course  put  the  request  as  strongly  as  possible.  Indeed, 
I  cannot  say  that  I  really  blame  Japan  for  not  granting  it, 
for  she  is  naturally  afraid  that  magnanimity  on  her  part 
would  be  misinterpreted  and  turned  to  bad  account  against 
her.  The  Japanese  envoys  have  sailed  and  the  Eussians 
I  am  informed  will  be  here  by  August  first.  I  think  then 
they  can  get  an  armistice." 


CHAPTER  XXXII 
KUSSO-JAPANESE    PEACE    CONFERENCE— CONCLUDED 

On  the  eve  of  the  meeting  of  the  conference,  the  President 
was  not  sanguine  of  success.  He  wrote  to  Mr.  J.  St.  L. 
Strachey,  editor  of  the  London  Spectator,  on  July  17, 1905 : 
"The  Peace  Conference  is  about  to  meet,  but  from  what 
I  gather  of  Witte's  (one  of  the  Russian  plenipotentiaries) 
attitude  the  chances  are  unfavorable  for  peace.  The  Rus- 
sians, having  been  entirely  unable  to  make  war,  seem  now 
entirely  unable  to  make  peace,  and  stupidly  unwilling  to 
face  the  fact  that  when  their  opponents  have  them  at  their 
mercy  the  opponents  have  the  same  right  to  exact  terms 
from  them  that  they  would  have  if  they  went  on  and  treated 
them  without  mercy.  It  is  just  like  two  wrestlers,  when 
one  of  them  has  the  hammerlock  on  the  other;  the  latter 
need  not  give  way  if  he  does  not  choose  to,  but  if  he  does 
not  his  arm  will  be  broken.  That  is  the  only  alternative  be- 
fore him.  Entirely  for  your  information  I  wish  to  say  that 
I  undertook  these  negotiations  only  at  the  request  of 
Japan." 

Ten  days  later  found  him  assuring  the  Kaiser  that  he 
was  working  cordially  with  him  and  was  grateful  for  his 
cooperation.  To  Mr.  Tower,  the  American  Ambassador  at 
Berlin,  he  wrote  on  July  27,  1905: 

"You  say  that  the  Chancellor  told  you  'that  M.  Delcasse 
had  formed  a  plan  by  which  peace  was  to  be  made  between 
Russia  and  Japan  through  the  mediation  of  France  and 
England,  and  that,  under  it,  an  arrangement  was  contem- 
plated by  which  not  only  Russia  and  Japan  were  to  obtain 
portions  of  China  but  that  France  and  England  were  also 
to  be  indemnified  by  Chinese  territory,  as  a  price  of  their 

401 


402  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

intervention ;  a  course  which  he  said  would  lead  to  the  de- 
struction of  Chinese  sovereignty  and  the  disruption  of  the 
Chinese  Empire. '  Pray  assure  the  Emperor,  either  direct- 
ly or  through  the  Chancellor,  that  I  should  absolutely  re- 
fuse to  submit  to  such  action  by  any  of  the  Powers,  and 
that  I  will  absolutely  support  the  Emperor's  policy  for  the 
preservation  of  the  integrity  of  China,  the  open  door,  and 
equal  rights  in  China  for  the  commerce  of  the  whole  world. 
"Also  express  to  the  Emperor  my  great  obligation  to 
him  for  his  courtesy,  my  great  pleasure  at  the  way  in  which 
Germany  and  the  United  States  are  working  together,  and 
my  feeling  that  this  means  well  for  the  good  of  the  world, 
for  its  peace  and  its  progress.  Will  you  also  explain  to  him 
that  of  course  in  any  such  matter  as  that  of  this  peace  ne- 
gotiation between  Eussia  and  Japan,  or  in  the  Morocco 
business,  I  cannot  do  more  than  a  certain  amount,  because 
I  do  not  wish  to  make  people  think  I  am  interfering  too 
much ;  but  say  that  I  am  sure  he  will  understand  that  when 
at  any  time  I  hesitate  to  take  some  action  suggested  it  is 
not  from  lack  of  desire  to  do  whatever  is  in  my  power,  but 
lest  I  put  myself  in  a  position  which  would  lessen  whatever 
usefulness  I  might  have  in  the  future.' ' 

No  sooner  had  the  President  received  the  report  about 
the  attitude  of  Witte,  one  of  the  Eussian  envoys,  which  he 
mentioned  in  his  letter  to  Mr.  Strachey,  quoted  above,  than 
he  sought  to  turn  it  to  advantage  by  communicating  it  to 
the  Japanese.  On  July  29, 1905,  he  wrote  to  Baron  Kaneko, 
Japan's  official  representative  in  New  York: 

"Will  you  show  this  letter  to  Baron  Komura?  I  told 
Baron  Komura  that  I  had  word  from  France  that  Witte 
had  said  he  would  not  pay  an  indemnity.  I  have  received 
another  cable  stating  that  he  said  he  would  not  pay  an  in- 
demnity but  would  consider  paying  at  least  part  of  Japan's 
expenses  in  the  war.  I  suggest,  therefore,  that  great  care 
be  used  about  the  word  indemnity  and  that  if  possible  it  be 
avoided.  Of  course,  my  information  may  not  be  accurate, 
as  Witte  may  only  have  been  speaking  for  effect,  but  equal- 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  CONFERENCE  403 

ly  of  course,  if  he  does  not  object  to  reimbursing  Japan 
for  her  expenses  in  the  war  it  does  not  make  the  slightest 
difference  to  you  whether  it  is  called  an  indemnity  or  not.  \ 9 

Writing  to  Whitelaw  Eeid  in  London  on  July  29,  1905, 
he  reverted  to  Lansdowne's  statement  cited  in  Eeid's  letter 
of  June  17,  1905,  already  quoted,  in  a  further  effort  to  get 
aid  from  England : 

1  i  I  think  that  as  regards  what  Lansdowne  said  to  you  the 
trouble  comes  in  his  own  statement  that  the  English  are 
'indisposed  to  exert  any  pressure  on  Japan  about  terms 
of  peace. '  If  by  pressure  anything  offensive  and  dictatorial 
is  meant  this  is  all  right.  But  it  is  all  wrong  if  it  means 
that  there  is  no  effort  to  get  Japan  to  do  what  is  best  both 
for  herself  and  for  England,  and  that  is  to  make  peace  in- 
stead of  insisting  upon  terms  which  may  prolong  the  war 
for  an  indefinite  period.,, 

At  the  same  time  he  was  laboring  with  the  British  Am- 
bassador at  Washington,  Sir  Mortimer  Durand,  for  he 
wrote  again  to  Eeid  on  August  3 :  "  Yesterday  Durand  was 
here  to  say  that  the  British  wished  peace  between  Eussia 
and  Japan,  but  did  not  feel  they  could  bring  pressure  on 
Japan.  I  told  him  just  what  I  wrote  you  in  my  last  letter — 
that  if  they  really  wished  peace  they  would  advise  the  Japs 
in  their  own  interest  to  make  it." 

In  the  latter  part  of  July  the  envoys  of  the  two  nations 
arrived  in  the  United  States.  Those  of  Eussia  were  Serge 
J.  Witte,  President  of  the  Czar's  Council  of  Ministers  and 
ex-Ministers  of  Finance,  and  Baron  Eosen,  who  succeeded 
Cassini  as  Eussian  Ambassador  at  Washington;  those  of 
Japan  were  Baron  Komura,  and  Takahira,  Japanese  Min- 
ister at  Washington.  Witte  brought  with  him  this  auto- 
graph letter  from  the  Czar: 

Peterhop, 
July  18,  1905. 
Dear  Mr.  Roosevelt: 

I  take  the  opportunity  of  Mr.  Witte 's  departure  for 


404  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Washington  to  express  to  you  my  feelings  of  sincere  friend- 
ship. 

/  Thanks  to  your  initiative,  the  Russian  and  Japanese  dele- 
gates are  going  to  meet  in  your  country  to  discuss  the  pos- 
sible terms  of  peace  between  both  belligerents. 

I  have  instructed  Mr.  Witte,  Secretary  of  State,  and  my 
Ambassador  in  the  United  States,  Baron  Rosen — how  far 
Russia's  concessions  can  go  towards  meeting  Japan's 
propositions. 

I  need  not  tell  you  that  I  have  full  confidence  that  you 
will  do  all  that  lies  in  your  power  to  bring  the  peace  nego- 
tiations to  a  satisfactory  conclusion." 

Believe  me 
Yours  truly, 

Nicolas. 

Soon  after  their  arrival  the  envoys,  each  set  going  sepa- 
rately, called  upon  Roosevelt  at  his  residence  in  Oyster  Bay, 
where  he  was  spending  the  summer.  On  August  5, 1905,  he 
received  the  four  envoys  formally  on  board  the  U.  S.  S. 
Mayflower  in  the  harbor  of  the  town.  In  behalf  of  the 
Government,  he  had  placed  a  war  vessel  at  the  disposal  of 
each  of  the  two  sets  of  envoys,  and  they  went  from  New 
York  on  board  these  vessels  to  Oyster  Bay.  On  arrival 
they  were  transferred  to  the  Mayflower  on  which  the  Presi- 
dent was  waiting  to  receive  them.  He  greeted  them  in- 
formally, introduced  the  envoys  of  the  two  nations  to  each 
other,  and  while  chatting  with  them  slowly  moved  into  the 
saloon  of  the  Mayflower,  where  a  luncheon  was  spread,  so 
conducting  them  that  as  they  moved  into  the  room  no  one 
could  tell  who  went  first.  There  were  no  chairs  about  the 
luncheon  table  and  consequently  all  peril  of  giving  offense 
by  precedence  in  seating  was  avoided.  Everything  had 
been  carefully  arranged  in  advance  by  the  President  in 
order  that  no  sign  of  favoritism  on  his  part  could  be  de- 
tected, and  all  passed  off  as  planned.  At  the  close  of  the 
luncheon  the  President  said : 

"Gentlemen,  I  propose  a  toast  to  which  there  will  be  no 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  CONFERENCE  405 

answer  and  which  I  ask  you  to  drink  in  silence,  standing. 
I  drink  to  the  welfare  and  prosperity  of  the  sovereigns  and 
peoples  of  the  two  great  nations  whose  representatives 
have  met  one  another  on  this  ship.  It  is  my  most  earnest 
hope  and  prayer,  in  the  interest  of  not  only  these  two  great 
powers,  but  of  all  mankind  that  a  just  and  lasting  peace 
may  speedily  be  concluded  between  them." 

The  gathering  then  separated  and  the  envoys,  each  pair 
on  a  separate  warship,  with  the  Mayflower  in  attendance 
for  such  use  as  might  be  desired  by  them,  departed  for 
Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire,  where  quarters  had  been  ar- 
ranged for  the  sittings  of  the  Conference  on  arrival  there. 

The  meeting  of  the  envoys  on  the  Mayflower  was  attended 
by  a  great  fleet  of  private  yachts  and  other  water  craft,  and 
attracted  attention  all  over  the  world  as  a  memorable  his- 
toric event,  unlike  any  that  had  hitherto  occurred  in  any 
land.  I  spent  the  night  following  the  meeting  with  the 
President  at  Oyster  Bay  and  found  him  weary  but  much 
pleased  with  the  result.  He  said  he  had  looked  forward  to 
the  meeting  with  anxiety,  realizing  that  a  single  slip  of  any 
kind  on  his  part  that  could  be  construed  as  favoring  one 
set  of  envoys  more  than  the  other  would  be  fatal.  No  such 
slip  had  occurred  and  he  believed  that  the  first  and  very 
important  step  toward  a  successful  outcome  had  been  taken. 
He  was  fully  aware  that  the  attention  of  the  whole  world 
was  concentrated  upon  him  and  that  if  he  failed  to  secure 
peace,  universal  condemnation  would  be  his  portion.  But 
as  he  said  in  many  of  his  letters,  so  he  said  to  me:  "I 
thought  it  my  plain  duty  to  make  the  effort.  I  have  done 
my  best  to  succeed  and  shall  continue  to  do  it  to  the  end. ' ' 

From  the  moment  the  Conference  began  its  sessions  the 
President  kept  a  close  watch  upon  its  proceedings,  was 
thoroughly  informed  of  the  situation  at  all  times,  and  was 
ceaseless  in  his  efforts  to  bring  about  a  favorable  result 
by  exerting  pressure  where  it  would  be  effective.  'It  may 
be  said  with  truth  that  he  was  himself  the  Qonf erence,  for 
he  was  its  guiding  and  controlling  force,    Its  final  agree- 


406  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

ment  was  the  one  which  at  the  outset  he  had  told  both  the 
envoys  and  their  governments  that  they  should  make. 
Whenever  the  envoys  hesitated  and  showed  signs  of  indis- 
position or  inability  to  agree,  he  sent  remonstrance  and 
appeal  both  to  them  and  to  their  home  governments,  warn- 
ing them  of  the  serious  consequences  of  failure.  By  per- 
suading those  governments  to  accept  his  views,  he  won 
success  in  the  end,  for  it  was  under  direct  instructions  from 
Tokio  and  St.  Petersburg  that  the  envoys  came  together/ 
That  this  is  an  accurate  statement  of  the  case  is  clearly 
revealed  by  the  President's  messages  and  letters  at  the 
time. 

When  late  in  August  the  envoys  were  virtually  at  a  dead- 
lock, the  President  sent  a  long  cable  message  to  Ambassa- 
dor Meyer  at  St.  Petersburg  instructing  him  to  see  the 
Czar  immediately  and  personally  deliver  it  to  him.  In  this 
he  earnestly  asked  the  Czar  to  believe  that  in  what  he  was 
about  to  say  and  to  advise  he  spoke  "as  the  earnest  well- 
wisher  of  Eussia"  and  gave  him  the  advice  which  he  would 
give  him  were  he  a  Eussian  patriot  and  statesman.  He 
then  told  him  that  the  Japanese  had  abandoned  certain  de- 
mands which  he  himself  had  felt  it  would  be  improper  for 
Eussia  to  yield  to,  and  to  his  "surprise  and  pleasure"  had 
offered  terms  upon  which  he  thought  a  just  and  honorable 
peace  could  be  obtained ;  that  it  seemed  to  him  that  it  would 
be  a  "dreadful  calamity' '  to  have  the  war  continued  when 
such  a  peace  was  obtainable,  adding:  "Every  considera- 
tion of  national  self-interest,  of  military  expediency  and  of 
broad  humanity  makes  it  eminently  wise  for  Eussia  to  con- 
clude peace  substantially  along  these  lines,  and  it  is  my 
hope  and  prayer  that  your  Majesty  may  take  this  view." 

On  the  following  day,  August  22, 1905,  he  sent  a  confiden- 
tial letter  to  Baron  Kaneko  at  New  York  which  he  said  he 
would  be  glad  to  have  him  cable  to  his  home  government. 
In  this  he  said  he  thought  he  should  tell  Kaneko  that  on 
all  sides  he  heard  a  good  deal  of  complaint  among  friends 
of  Japan  as  to  the  possibility  of  Japan's  continuing  the  war 
for  a  large  indemnity,  and  strongly  urged  Japan  not  to 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  CONFERENCE  407 

• 

take  that  course  since  if  taken  it  would  cause  the  spilling 
of  an  immense  amount  of  blood  and  Eussia  would  be  in  no 
condition  to  give  any  money  at  all — certainly  not  enough  to 
make  up  the  extra  amount  spent.  " Moreover,' '  he  con- 
cluded, "I  feel,  of  course,  that  every  interest  of  civiliza- 
tion and  humanity  forbids  the  continuance  of  this  war 
merely  for  an  indemnity.,, 

One  day  later,  August  23,  1905,  he  supplemented  this  ap- 
peal with  another  in  which  he  gave  specific  reasons  why 
Japan  should  not  continue  the  war  in  order  to  get  an  in- 
demnity, and  added :  "  Ethically  it  seems  to  me  that  Japan 
owes  a  duty  to  the  world  at  this  crisis.  The  civilized  world 
looks  to  her  to  make  peace ;  the  nations  believe  in  her ;  let 
her  show  her  leadership  in  matters  ethical  no  less  than  in 
matters  military.  The  appeal  is  made  to  her  in  the  name  of 
all  that  is  lofty  and  noble;  and  to  this  appeal  I  hope  she 
will  not  be  deaf." 

August  23, 1905,  was  a  very  busy  day  even  for  the  Presi- 
dent. In  addition  to  appeal  direct  to  the  Mikado,  he  sought 
to  reach  the  Czar  through  Witte,  one  of  the  Kussian  envoys. 
A  previous  effort  of  this  kind  had  resulted  in  his  message 
reaching  the  Czar  in  a  form  which  led  to  a  misinterpreta- 
tion of  the  Presidents  meaning.  On  this  occasion  he  re- 
quested that  his  Majesty  should  himself  receive  it  so  that 
there  might  be  "no  possible  question  of  misinterpretation. ' ' 
After  stating  the  terms  of  peace  upon  which  the  envoys 
were  agreed,  eliminating  all  others  as  unimportant,  he  said 
in  this  message :  uTo  decline  to  make  peace  on  those  terms 
it  seems  to  me  is  to  invite  terrible  disaster  to  Eussia,  and 
I  should  hate  to  be  responsible  for  the  possibility  of  such 
disaster  when  the  alternative  is  an  absolutely  just  and 
honorable  peace  along  the  lines  indicated.,, 

Again  on  August  23,  1905,  he  made  one  more  attempt  to 
induce  England  to  bring  pressure  on  Japan.  He  sent  a 
message  to  Sir  Mortimer  Durand,  who  was  at  Lenox,  Mass., 
stating  the  points  of  agreement  and  disagreement  between 
the  Eussian  and  Japanese  envoys  as  they  had  developed  in 
the  Conference,  and  saying:  "In  my  judgment  every  true 


408  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

• 

friend  of  Japan  should  tell  it  as  I  have  already  told  it,  that 
the  opinion  of  the  civilized  world  will  not  support  it  in 
continuing  the  war  merely  for  the  purpose  of  extorting 
money  from  Russia.  I  wish  your  people  could  get  my 
view."  Writing  to  Henry  White,  Ambassador  to  Italy, 
on  the  same  date,  he  said: 

"I  am  in  the  last  throes  of  trying  to  get  the  Russians 
and  Japanese  to  make  peace.  The  Russians  are  the  worst, 
because  they  stand  up  with  Chinese  or  Byzantine  folly  and 
insist,  as  Witte  has  just  written  me,  that  Russia  will  not 
admit  itself  vanquished — making  it  all  that  I  can  do  not 
to  tell  them  some  straightforward  truths  in  uncomplimen- 
tary language.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Japanese  have  no 
business  to  continue  the  war  merely  for  the  sake  of  getting 
money  and  they  will  defeat  their  own  ends  if  they  do  so. 
The  English  Government  has  been  foolishly  reluctant  to 
advise  Japan  to  be  reasonable,  and  in  this  respect  has  not 
shown  well  compared  to  the  attitude  of  the  German  and 
French  Governments  in  being  willing  to  advise  Russia.  I 
have  not  much  hope  of  a  favorable  result,  but  I  will  do  what 
I  can." 

Turning  his  attention  once  more  to  the  Czar,  also  on 
August  23,  1905,  he  sent  a  message  to  him  through  Ambas- 
sador Meyer  outlining  the  terms  he  had  suggested  to  the 
envoys  for  final  agreement  and  saying;  "Please  send  this 
supplementary  cable  to  His  Majesty  at  once  and  further 
explain  that  I  of  course  cannot  be  sure  Japan  will  act  on 
my  suggestions,  but  that  I  know  she  ought  to,  and  that  if 
Russia  accedes  to  them  I  shall  try  my  best  to  get  Japan 
to  accede  to  them  also." 

The  crisis  arrived  on  August  27,  1905.  On  the  previous 
day  the  Mikado  sent  this  reply  to  the  President's  appeal, 
made  through  Baron  Kaneko  on  August  22 : 

"The  Imperial  Government  highly  appreciates  the  sin- 
gleness of  purpose  and  lofty  intention  with  which  the  Pres- 
ident has  always  exerted  his  powerful  influence  in  the  in- 
terest of  civilization  and  humanity.    They  beg  to  express 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  CONFERENCE  409 

their  cordial  thanks  for  the  sincere  and  useful  advice  which 
the  President,  having  regard  to  the  sentiment  in  America 
and  other  countries,  has  been  good  enough,  at  this  juncture, 
to  tender  them.  The  Imperial  Government  will  have  no 
hesitation  in  acting  on  the  advice,  and  they  will  accordingly, 
in  the  matter  of  the  amount  of  compensation,  consent  to 
make  still  further  concessions." 

The  promised  "concessions"  did  not  apparently  reach 
the  Japanese  envoys  on  August  27, 1905,  or  if  received  were 
not  satisfactory  to  the  Eussians,  for  on  that  day  the  Jap- 
anese envoys  abandoned  all  hope  of  peace.  Baron  Kaneko 
forwarded  to  the  President  from  New  York  a  telegram  that 
he  had  received  from  Baron  Komura,  one  of  the  envoys, 
which,  wrote  Kaneko,  caused  him  to  "fear  from  its  tone 
that  the  last  day  has  come. ' '    The  telegram  read : 

"At  the  sitting  this  afternoon  a  confidential  talk  with  the 
Eussian  plenipotentiaries  has  been  held  at  which  M.  Witte 
expressed  that  there  was  absolutely  no  hope  for  him  to  ob- 
tain the  consent  of  the  Eussian  Government  to  concede  to 
the  last  Japanese  compromise.  In  reference  to  this  he 
mentioned  that  even  in  regard  to  the  matters  concerning 
Manchuria  which  have  already  been  agreed  upon  at  nego- 
tiations, the  military  party  in  Eussia  considers  that  Eussia 
has  gone  much  beyond  the  limit,  which  fact  leaves  no  room 
for  them  to  seriously  consider  the  questions  of  compensa- 
tion and  cession  of  Saghalien,  and  their  feeling  is  bitter 
against  any  further  concession.  In  the  face  of  these  facts 
M.  Witte  regarded  that  any  further  attempt,  on  his  part, 
to  a  successful  conclusion  of  the  conference  was  absolutely 
beyond  his  power.  Whereupon,  after  agreeing  to  have  a 
final  meeting  on  next  Monday  afternoon,  the  .meeting  was 
adjourned. 

"Such  being  the  case,  I  consider  that  the  last  hope  for 
peace  is  gone.  Therefore  I  request  that  you  will  kindly 
inform  the  President  to  that  effect  at  once.  Your  tele- 
gram concerning  your  interview  with  the  President  and  his 
advice  has  already  been  cabled  to  the  Tokio  Gpvernment.,, 


410  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

On  August  28,  1905,  Komura  sent  another  telegram  to 
Kaneko,  who  forwarded  it  to  the  President  with  the  re- 
mark: "I  fear  that  before  this  letter  reaches  you  we  may 
hear  an  awful  result  of  the  conference. ' '  This  telegram 
read: 

"  Owing  to  the  delay  of  the  final  instruction  from  the 
Government,  Minister  Takahira,  calling  on  M.  Witte  last 
evening,  suggested  the  postponement  of  to-day's  sitting 
until  to-morrow — Tuesday.  M.  Witte  's  reply  was  as  fol- 
lows : 

1 '  '  Concerning  the  problems  of  indemnity  and  cession  of 
Saghalien,  on  which  we  could  not  agree,  the  President  has 
tendered,  through  the  American  Ambassador,  an  advice  to 
the  Czar,  to  which  the  latter  has  replied  that  under  no 
circumstances  could  he  consider  any  further  concession 
whatever.  [For  the  second  time,  however,  the  President 
instructed  the  Ambassador  to  present  his  counsel  to  the 
Czar,  which  the  former  put  in  a  letter,  and  requested  Count 
Lamsdorfr*  to  present  to  the  Czar.  But,  on  receipt  of  the 
letter,  the  Czar  marked  on  it:  'No  further  consideration ' 
and  put  it  aside.  Furthermore,  I  am  under  the  strictest  in- 
struction, which  absolutely  forbids  me  to  propose  any  new 
proposition,  or  enter  upon  discussion  on  a  new  compro- 
mise, which  you  may  make  concerning  the  two  problems — 
indemnity  and  the  cession  of  Saghalien.  There  is  of  course 
no  objection  as  to  the  postponement  of  to-morrow's  sitting. 
But  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  there  is  no  way  now  open  for 
me  to  further  discuss  on  the  subject,  and  even  if  you  pro- 
pose a  new  solution  of  the  problem,  unless  it  comes  within 
the  scope  of  the  Czar's  reply  to  the  President,  I  am  unabJe 
even  to  transmit  such  proposition  to  the  Government.' 

"I  am  profoundly  appreciating  the  earnest  and  sincere 
effort  with  which  the  President  has  been  trying  to  assist 
us  for  the  interests  of  peace  and  humanity.  But  the  above 
being  the  Czar's  position,  as  presented  by  M.  Witte,  I 
grieve  extremely  to  put  the  President  into  so  much  trouble 
to  make  another  attempt  to  persuade  the  Czar,  through  the 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  CONFERENCE  411 

Kaiser,  which,  I  know,  from  the  words  of  M.  Witte,  to  be 
of  no  avail  whatever." 

.  "When  these  cries  of  despair  reached  the  President  he 
made  a  final  effort  to  force  an  agreement.  Direct  to  the 
Kaiser  he  sent  this  message,  at  the  same  time  sending  a 
copy  of  it  to  the  Mikado : 

^Peace  can  be  obtained  on  the  following  terms :  Russia 
to  pay  no  indemnity  whatever  and  to  receive  back  north 
half  of  Saghalien,  for  which  it  is  to  pay  to  Japan  whatever 
amount  a  mixed  commission  may  determine.  This  is  my 
proposition,  to  which  the  Japanese  have  assented  reluc- 
tantly and  only  under  strong  pressure  from  me.  The  plan 
is  for  each  of  the  contending  parties  to  name  an  equal 
number  of  members  of  the  commission  and  for  the  commis- 
sioners to  name  the  odd  member.  The  Japanese  assert  that 
Witte  has  in  principle  agreed  that  Russia  should  pay  some- 
thing to  get  back  the  north  half  of  Saghalien  and  indeed 
he  intimated  to  me  that  they  might  buy  it  back  at  a  reason- 
able figure,  something  on  the  scale  of  that  for  which  Alaska 
was  sold  to  the  United  States/ 

' '  These  terms,  which  strike  me  as  extremely  moderate,  I 
have  not  presented  in  this  form  to  the  Russian  Emperor. 
I  feel  that  you  have  more  influence  with  him  than  either 
I  or  any  one  else  can  have.  As  this  situation  is  exceedingly 
strained  and  the  relations  between  the  plenipotentiaries 
critical  to  a  degree  immediate  action  is  necessary.  Can 
you  not  take  the  initiative  by  presenting  these  terms  at 
once  to  him?  Your  success  in  the  matter  will  make  the 
entire  civilized  world  your  debtor.  This  proposition  vir- 
tually relegates  all  the  unsettled  issues  of  the  war  to  the 
arbitration  of  a  mixed  commission  as  outlined  above,  and 
I  am  unable  to  see  how  Russia  can  refuse  your  request  if 
in  your  wisdom  you  see  fit  to  make  it. ' ' 

Success  crowned  this  last  appeal,  for  on  August  29, 1905, 
there  came  to  the  Japanese  envoys  a  message  from  Tokio, 
which  Baron  Kaneko  forwarded  to  the  President: 


412  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

"The  Emperor,  after  presiding  at  a  Cabinet  Council,  de- 
cided to  withdraw  the  demand  of  money  payment  for  the 
cost  of  war  entirely,  if  Bussia  recognize  the  occupation  of 
Saghalien  Island  by  Japan,  because  the  Emperor  regards 
humanity  and  civilization  far  more  than  his  nation's  wel- 
fare.J  ' 

"This  is,  of  course,' '  commented  Kaneko,  "exactly  the 
line  of  policy  you  wrote  to  me  in  your  two  last  letters, 
which  were  submitted  to  the  Emperor." 

Later  on  the  same  day  Baron  Kaneko  again  wrote  to  the 
President : 

'SThe  Peace  is  concluded  at  last!  Our  Emperor  has 
decided  on  the  line  of  policy  you  suggested  in  your 
letters  to  me,  as  you  know  these  two  letters  were  trans- 
mitted by  cable  to  our  Government. 

"Your  advice  to  us  was  very  powerful  and  convincing, 
by  which  the  peace  of  Asia  was  secured.  Both  Bussia  and 
Japan  owe  to  you  this  happy  conclusion;  and  your  name 
shall  be  remembered  with  the  peace  and  prosperity  of 
Asia." 

An  agreement  was  reached  on  August  29,  1905,  on  the 
terms  laid  down  by  the  President,  and  on  September  5, 
1905,  a  treaty  of  peace  embodying  them  was  signed.  When 
the  agreement  was  announced  the  whole  world  broke  into 
a  joyous  paean  of  praise  for  Boosevelt.  Newspapers  of  all 
parties  and  all  lands  joined  in  it.  Messages  of  congratu- 
lation poured  in  upon  him  from  crowned  heads  and  the 
leading  men  of  his  own  and  other  countries.  The  most  in- 
teresting, of  course,  were  the  following: 

Nbues  Palais,  August  29,  1905. 
President  Theodore  Roosevelt: 

Just  read  cable  from  America  announcing  agreement  of 
peace  conference  on  preliminaries  of  peace ;  am  overjoyed ; 
express  most  sincere  congratulations  at  the  great  success 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  CONFERENCE  413 

due  to  your  untiring  efforts.  The  whole  of  mankind  must 
unite  and  will  do  so  in  thanking  you  for  the  great  boon  you 
have  given  it. 

William  I.  E. 

Petebhop,  Alexandria,  August  31,  1905. 
President  Roosevelt: 

/Accept  my  congratulations  and  warmest  thanka  for  hav- 
ing brought  the  peace  negotiations  to  a  successful  conclu- 
sion owing  to  your  personal  energetic  efforts.  My  country 
will  gratefully  recognize  the  great  part  you  have  played  in 
the  Portsmouth  Peace  Conference. 

Nicolas. 

Tokio,  September  3,  1905. 
The  President: 

I  have  received  with  gratification  your  message  of  con- 
gratulations conveyed  through  our  plenipotentiaries,  and 
thank  you  warmly  for  it.  To  your  disinterested  and  unre- 
mitting efforts  of  peace  and  humanity  I  attach  the  high 
value  which  is  their  due,  and  assure  you  of  my  grateful  ap- 
preciation of  the  distinguished  part  you  have  taken  in  the 
establishment  of  peace  based  upon  principles  essential  to 
the  permanent  welfare  and  tranquillity  of  the  Far  East. 

Mutsushito. 
(Mikado) 

Whitelaw  Reid  wrote  from  London  on  September  11, 
1905,  that  at  a  luncheon  where  King  Edward  was  present 
the  latter  had  said  to  him  that  he  "was  simply  lost  in  ad- 
miration for  the  President;  that  nobody  else  could  have 
done  it ;  and  that  it  was  not  made  any  easier  by  the  Czar, 
who  was  evidently  afraid  to  have  his  army  return." 

Roosevelt  was  quite  calm  under  it  all,  as  he  invariably 
was  when  action  of  his  won  strong  approval.  Writing  to 
his  brother-in-law,  Douglas  Robinson,  on  August  31,  1905, 
he  said,  with  unjust  criticism  in  the  past  clearly  in  mind : 

"Don't  be  misled  by  the  fact  that  just  at  the  moment  men 


414  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

are  speaking  well  of  me.  They  will  speak  ill  soon  enough. 
As  Mr.  Loeb  remarked  to  me  to-day/sometime  soon  I  shall 
have  to  spank  some  little  brigand  of  a  South  American 
Eepublic,  and  then  all  the  well-meaning  idiots  will  turn  and 
shriek  that  this  is  inconsistent  with  what  I  did  with  the 
Peace  Conference,  whereas  it  will  be  exactly  in  line  with  it 
in  reality,/  Of  course  I  am  very  much  pleased  at  the  out- 
come. ,/I  tried  as  far  as  it  was  humanly  possible  to  get  the 
chances  my  way,  and  looked  the  ground  over  very  carefully 
before  I  took  action^  Nevertheless  I  was  taking  big  chances 
and  I  knew  it,  and  I  am  very  glad  things  came  out  as  they 
did.  I  can  honestly  say,  however,  that  my  personal  feel- 
ings in"  the  matter  have  seemed  to  be  of  very,  very  small 
account  compared  to  the  great  need  of  trying  to  do  some- 
thing which  it  seemed  to  me  the  interests  of  the  whole 
world  demanded  to  be  done. ' ' 

September  2,  1905. 
To  Senator  Lodge: 

"I  am  very  much  pleased  to  have  put  the  thing  through.  I 
am  almost  ashamed  to  say  that  while  physically  in  fine  trim 
the  last  three  months  have  left  me  feeling  rather  tired,  be- 
cause from  a  variety  of  causes  I  have  not  had  at  hand  to 
advise  with  the  Cabinet  Ministers  who  were  dealing  with  the 
subjects  that  were  at  the  moment  the  most  important,  and  so 
have  had  to  run  everything  myself  without  any  interme- 
diaries." 

To  his  daughter  Alice:  (Mrs.  Nicholas  Longworth) ,  on  the 

same  date : 

"I  have  had  all  kinds  of  experiences  with  the  envoys  and 
with  the  governments,  and  to  the  two  latter  I  finally  had 
to  write  time  after  time  as  a  very  polite  but  also  very  in- 
sistent Dutch  Uncle.  I  am  amused  to  see  the  way  in  which 
the  Japanese  kept  silent.  Whenever  I  wrote  a  letter  to  the 
Czar  the  Russians  were  sure  to  divulge  it,  almost  always  in 
twisted  form,  but  the  outside  world  never  had  so  much  as 
a  hint  of  any  letter  I  sent  to  the  Japanese.  The  Russians 
became  very  angry  with  me  during  the  course  of  the  pro- 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  CONFERENCE  415 

ceedings  because  they  thought  I  was  only  writing  to  them. 
"It  is  enough  to  give  any  one  a  sense  of  sardonic  amuse- 
ment to  see  the  way  in  which  the  people  generally,  not  only 
in  my  own  country  but  elsewhere,  gage  the  work  purely 
by  the  fact  that  it  succeeded.  If  I  had  not  brought  about 
peace  I  should  have  been  laughed  at  and  condemned.  Now 
I  am  over-praised.  I  am  credited  with  being  extremely 
longheaded,  etc.  As  a  matter  of  fact  I  took  the  position 
I  finally  did  not  of  my  own  volition  but  because  events  so 
shaped  themselves  that  I  would  have  felt  as  if  I  was  flinch- 
ing from  a  plain  duty  if  I  had  acted  otherwise." 

A  note  which  the  President  wrote  to  the  German  Ambas- 
sador at  "Washington,  Count  Speck-yon  Sternburg,  on  Sep- 
tember 6,  1905,  shows  how  cordially  and  promptly  the 
Kaiser  cooperated  with  Eoosevelt  in  bringing  pressure 
on  the  Czar:  "If  you  see  His  Majesty  tell  him  (but  only 
for  his  own  ear)  that  in  Meyer's  last  audience  with  the 
Czar  the  latter  commented  upon  the  fact  that  whenever 
Meyer  made  a  visit  to  him,  simultaneously  there  came  a 
cable  from  the  German  Emperor.  I  think  this  may  amuse 
the  Emperor.' ' 

To  Whitelaw  Reid,  in  London,  he  wrote  on  September 
11,  1905:  "The  Kaiser  stood  by  me  like  a  trump.  I  did 
not  get  much  direct  assistance  from  the  English  Govern- 
ment, but  I  did  get  indirect  assistance,  for  I  learned  that 
they  forwarded  to  Japan  my  note  to  Durand,  and  I  think 
that  the  signing  of  the  Anglo-Japanese  treaty  made  Japan 
feel  comparatively  safe  as  to  the  future." 

On  September  6, 1905,  the  President  sent  a  long  letter  to 
the  Mikado,  written  in  his  own  hand,  which  is  well  worth 
reproducing  here  in  full: 

"To  His  Majesty,  the  Emperor  of  Japan: 

"Through  Baron  Komura  I  send  you  this  letter,  to  ex- 
press, as  strongly  as  I  can,  my  sense  of  the  magnanimity, 
and  above  all  of  the  cool-headed,  far-sighted  wisdom,  you 


416  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

have  shown  in  making  peace  as  you  did.  I  am  sure  your 
people  will  soon  appreciate  to  the  full  the  inestimable  bene- 
fit you  have  thereby  conferred  upon  the  empire  over  which 
you  bear  sway.  During  the  last  eighteen  months  your  gen- 
erals and  admirals,  your  soldiers  and  sailors,  have  won  im- 
perishable renown  for  Nippon.  /'Their  glory — your  glory, 
and  your  nation's  glory — will  last  as  long  as  history  is 
written,  as  long  as  mighty  deeds  are  remembered,  as  long 
as  the  race  of  man  endures.  You  have  crowned  triumphant 
war  by  a  peace  in  which  every  great  object  for  which  you 
fought  is  secured,  and  in  so  doing  you  have  given  to  the 
world  a  signal  and  most  striking  example  of  how  it  is  pos- 
sible for  a  victorious  nation  to  achieve  victory  over  others 
without  losing  command  over  itself.  In  every  nation  there 
are  hot-heads  who  demand  the  impossible,  who  are  discon- 
tented if  they  do  not  get  something  which,  if  they  were 
allowed  to  try  to  get  it,  they  would  have  to  pay  for  it  at 
a  cost  altogether  disproportionate  to,  and  in  excess  of,  its 
value.  Had  your  nation  listened  at  this  time  to  the  advice 
of  such  men,  they  would  have  led  it  into  a  continuance  of 
the  war  which,  no  matter  how  damaging  to  Japan's  oppo- 
nent, would  also  have  been  necessarily  of  damage  to  Japan 
far  beyond  what  could  have  been  offset  by  any  resulting 
benefit.  The  greatness  of  a  people,  like  the  greatness  of  a 
man,  is  often  attended  quite  as  clearly  by  moderation  and 
wisdom  in  using  a  triumph  as  by  the  triumph  itself.  Many 
a  great  victory  has  been  hopelessly  marred,  and  its  effects 
undone,  by  its  arrogant  and  short-sighted  misuse. 

"In  this  crucial  hour  your  Majesty  has  shown  that  the 
people  of  Nippon  are  true  alike  to  their  ancient  spirit  and 
to  the  needs  of  the  modern  world ;  for  you  have  shown,  and 
through  you  your  people  have  shown,  that  you  and  they 
possess  that  rare  combination,  the  combination  of  the  high 
valor  and  foresight  which  win  victories,  and  the  lofty  wis- 
dom which  turns  them  to  the  best  account.' ' 

An  incident  which  amused  the  President  occurred  on 
September  14, 1905.    Baron  Eosen,  who  had  succeeded  Cas- 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  CONFERENCE  417 

sini  as  Russian  Ambassador  at  Washington,  went  to  Oyster 
Bay  and  presented  to  Roosevelt  a  letter  from  the  Czar  in 
which  the  latter,  after  speaking  of  himself  as  the  "initiator 
of  the  International  Peace  Conference  of  1899,' '  expressed 
the  belief  that  a  favorable  moment  had  come  for  system- 
atizing the  labors  of  that  Conference,  and  continued: 
"With  this  end  in  view  and  being  assured  in  advance  of  the 
sympathy  of  President  Roosevelt,  who  has  already  last 
year  pronounced  himself  in  favor  of  such  a  project,  His 
Majesty  desires  to  approach  him  with  a  proposal  to  the 
effect  that  the  Government  of  the  United  States  take  part 
in  a  new  International  Conference,  which  could  be  called  to- 
gether at  The  Hague  as  soon  as  favorable  replies  could  be 
secured  from  all  the  other  States  to  whom  a  similar  pro- 
posal will  be  made.,, 

Roosevelt,  with  that  quick  insight  into  human  motives 
which  was  one  of  his  characteristics,  in  a  letter  to  Secretary 
Root,  thus  explains  what  followed: 

"After  he  had  read  the  letter  Rosen  began  to  hem  and 
haw  as  to  the  steps  already  taken  by  me  a  year  ago,  and 
about  the  fact  that  The  Hague  Conference  was  the  pecu- 
liar pet  project  of  the  Czar.  I  finally  interrupted  him  and 
said  that  I  thought  I  understood  what  he  wished  and  that 
he  could  tell  the  Czar  at  once  that  I  was  delighted  to  have 
him  and  not  me  undertake  the  movement;  that  I  should 
treat  the  movement  as  being  made  on  his  initiative,  and 
should  heartily  support  it.  This  evidently  relieved  Rosen 
immensely.  I  rather  think  that  the  Czar  had  felt  from 
past  experience  with  the  Kaiser  that  there  was  a  fair 
chance  that  I  might  endeavor  to  appear  as  the  great  origi- 
nator myself.  As  a  matter  of  fact  I  am  glad  to  be  relieved 
from  making  the  move  on  my  own  initiative.  I  should 
have  done  it  if  no  one  else  had  done  it  because  I  think  it 
ought  to  be  done ;  but  I  particularly  do  not  want  to  appear 
as  a  professional  peace  advocate/and  it  gives  us  a  freer 
hand  in  every  way  to  have  the  Czar  make  the  movement." 


418.         THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

In  a  letter  to  Sir  George  Otto  Trevelyan,  written  on  Sep- 
tember 12, 1905,  the  President  gave  an  entertaining  account 
of  the  impressions  which  the  envoys  of  the  two  nations 
made  upon  him.  His  report  of  the  views  which  Witte  ex- 
pressed about  Eussia  are  especially  interesting  in  view  of 
the  later  developments  in  that  unfortunate  nation: 

"I  am  bound  to  say  that  the  Japs  have  impressed  me 
most  favorably,  not  only  during  these  three  months  but 
during  the  four  years  I  have  been  President.  They  have 
always  told  me  the  truth.  They  are  a  very  secretive  people, 
and  I  speedily  learned  that  I  must  never  read  into  any- 
thing they  said  one  word  more  than  was  actually  down 
in  black  and  write ;  but  so  far,  whenever  they  have  actually 
committed  themselves  I  have  been  able  to  count  absolutely 
on  their  doing  what  they  said  they  would.  Moreover,  they 
know  their  own  minds  and  all  act  together;  whereas  the 
Eussians  all  pulled  against  one  another,  rarely  knew  their 
own  minds,  lied  so  to  others  that  they  finally  got  into  the 
dangerous  position  of  lying  to  themselves,  and  showed  a 
most  unhealthy  and  widespread  corruption  and  selfishness. 

"I  suppose  Witte  is  the  best  man  that  Eussia  could  have 
at  the  head  of  her  affairs  at  present,  and  probably  too  good 
a  man  for  the  grand  dukes  to  be  willing  to  stand  him.  He 
interested  me.  I  cannot  say  that  I  liked  him,  for  I  thought 
his  bragging  and  bluster  not  only  foolish  but  shockingly 
vulgar  when  compared  with  the  gentlemanly  self-respecting 
self-restraint  of  the  Japanese.  Moreover,  he  struck  me  as  a 
very  selfish  man,  totally  without  high  ideals.  He  calmly 
mentioned  to  me,  for  instance,  that  it  was  Eussia's  interest 
to  keep  Turkey  in  power  in  the  Balkan  Peninsula ;  that  he 
believed  that  Turkey  would  last  a  long  time,  because  it 
would  be  a  very  bad  thing  for  Eussia  to  have  the  Bulga- 
rians, for  instance,  substituted  for  the  Turks,  for  the  very 
reason  that  they  might  give  a  wholesome,  reputable  gov- 
ernment and  thereby  build  up  a  great  Slav  State  to  the 
South.  He  added  cynically  that  such  a  consummation 
might  be  good  for  sentimental  reasons,  but  that  sentiment 
did  not  count  in  practical  politics.    Inasmuch  as  I  person- 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  CONFERENCE  419 

ally  think  that  practical  politics  are  a  most  sordid  business 
unless  they  rest  on  a  basis  of  honest  and  disinterested  sen- 
timent (though  of  course  I  appreciate  to  the  full  that  with 
this  disinterested  sentiment  there  must  also  go  intelligent 
self-interest)  I  could  not  help  feeling  much  contempt  for 
the  excellent  Mr.  Witte. 

"Witte  is  curiously  frank  and  very  emphatic  in  his  state- 
ment of  the  need  of  a  thorough  reform  in  Russia.  He  put 
it  upon  the  perfectly  simply  ground  that  in  the  20th  cen- 
tury Russia  could  not  hope  to  move  forward  to  the  tre- 
mendous position  which  he  firmly  believed  she  would  ulti- 
mately reach  unless  she  met  20th  century  conditions.  He 
spoke  with  utter  impatience  of  the  reactionaries  in  Russia, 
and  in  speaking  of  Dostoyevsky,  the  author  of  'Crime  and 
Punishment, '  he  expressed  the  same  horror  of  his  having 
been  sent  to  Siberia  that  one  of  us  would  feel.  I  also  sym- 
pathize with  him  in  his  complaint  about  the  hopeless  na- 
ture of  many  of  the  Russian  reformers,  headed  by  Tolstoi. 
These  reformers,  and  preeminently  Tolstoi,  lack  sanity,  and 
it  is  very  difficult  to  do  decent  reform  work,  or  any  other 
kind  of  work,  if  for  sanity  we  substitute  a  condition  of  mere 
morbid  hysteria.  Witte  also  expressed  his  views  about 
religious  freedom  and  freedom  of  conscience  in  a  way  that 
would  command  hearty  support  from  you  or  me." 

What  Witte  thought  of  Roosevelt  was  revealed  at  the 
time  the  above  letter  was  written.  A  cable  message  from 
Berlin,  under  date  of  September  8, 1905,  was  published  giv- 
ing the  following  extract  from  a  private  letter  that  he  had 
written  to  a  friend : 

"From  a  moral  point  of  view  the  President  of  the  United 
States  is  a  statesman  of  large  caliber.  Born  in  a  time 
when  politicians  are  more  children  of  their  century  than  of 
their  history,  he  owes  his  high  position,  which  he  fills  more 
worthily  every  day,  exclusively  to  his  personal  qualities, 
as  revealed  in  actions  requiring  decision,  tact  and  clear 
vision.  The  world  recognizes  this.  When  one  speaks  with 
President  Roosevelt,  he  charms  through  the  elevation  of 


420  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

his  thoughts  and  through  that  transparent  philosophy 
which  permeates  his  judgment.  He  has  an  ideal  and  strives 
for  higher  aims  than  a  commonplace  existence  presents.  In 
the  stubborn  struggles  of  our  day  men  like  Mr.  Eoosevelt 
have  no  leisure,  for  they  are  soldiers  who  cannot  be  re- 
lieved from  the  danger  line.' ' 

Baron  Eosen,  the  other  Russian  Envoy,  in  commenting 
upon  the  above  in  his  '  Reminiscences, '  says: 

"If  it  had  been  Witte's  good  fortune,  as  it  has  been  mine, 
to  have  read  ' Theodore  Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His  Chil- 
dren, '  he  would  have  added  that  profoundly  as  one  must 
admire  the  great  statesman,  it  is  impossible  not.  to  love  the 
man  who  wrote  these  letters. ' ' 


Of  Roosevelt's  services,  the  Baron  writes: 
"But  both  nations  owed  a  debt  of  profound  gratitude  to 
the .  great  statesman  who  had  the  wise  insight  to  realize 
that  the  indefinite  continuation  of  a  war  which  could  only 
end  in  the  exhaustion  of  one  of  them,  or  of  both,  could  not 
possibly  serve  the  true  and  permanent  interests  of  either 
side,  nor  of  the  rest  of  mankind,  and  who  had  the  moral 
courage  to  undertake  the  delicate  and  risky  task  of  media- 
tion between  them,  undeterred  by  the  apprehension  of 
being  considered  a  ' pacifist.'  This  debt  of  gratitude  was 
frankly  and  unreservedly  acknowledged  by  the  rulers  of 
both  nations,  however  great  may  have  been  the  disappoint- 
ment of  the  militaristic  elements  on  both  sides,  in  whose 
eyes  a  war  would  naturally  be  considered  rather  in  the 
light  of  a  prize  fight,  that  can  only  be  terminated  with  honor 
by  a  knockout  blow  dealt  to  the  vanquished  by  the  victor. 
In  the  eyes  of  history,  however,  President  Roosevelt's  suc- 
cess in  bringing  about  the  Portsmouth  Conference  and  the 
subsequent  termination  of  the  war  by  a  peace  of  justice 
and  conciliation,  will  ever  be  regarded  as  the  crowning 
achievement  of  his  brilliant  career  as  a  statesman  and 
Chief  Magistrate  of  this  great  Nation." 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  CONFERENCE  421 

A  striking  tribute  to  Roosevelt's  services  in  the  Peace 
Conference  was  paid  by  Prof.  Frederic  Frommhold  De 
Martens,  a  recognized  world-wide  authority  on  interna- 
tional law,  who  accompanied  the  Eussian  envoys  and  was 
their  adviser  during  the  negotiations.  It  was  published  in 
the  Outlook  in  January,  1920.  I  quote  a  few  of  its  passages : 

"His  conduct  during  the  whole  time  that  the  peace  ne- 
gotiations lasted  has  been  a  marvel  of  tact.  Without  ap- 
pearing to  inject  himself  into  the  course  of  the  conversa- 
tions and  discussions  which  took  place  between  the  dele- 
gates, he  contrived  to  keep  himself  exactly  informed  as  to 
all  that  was  going  on,  and  more  than  once  intervened  in 
the  most  discreet  manner  by  conveying  a  hint  or  a  message 
to  the  plenipotentiaries  which  cleared  the  skies  and  brought 
things  back  to  their  true  level. 

"I  have  often  wondered  where  Roosevelt  could  have  ac- 
quired the  immense  amount  of  information  which  he  sud- 
denly displayed,  and  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  a 
great  deal  of  it  was  due  to  his  extraordinary  powers  of 
intuition  which  made  him  draw  deductions  and  conclusions 
where  others  saw  only  the  bare  facts.  And,  moreover,  that 
Portsmouth  Conference,  which  will  surely  mark  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world  the  first  effort  made  by  the  United  States 
to  stand  as  an  equal  at  the  side  of  the  great  nations  of 
other  continents,  was  essentially  Roosevelt's  work,  and 
as  such  he  showed  us  immediately  that  he  intended,  and 
that  indeed  he  would,  bring  it  to  a  good  and  safe  conclu- 
sion. 

' '  That  he  contrived  to  do  so  without  showing  openly  his 
hand,  and  while  abstaining  from  everything  that  could  have 
been  interpreted  as  an  attempt  to  interfere  in  matters 
which  were  not  supposed  to  concern  him,  was  a  work  which 
perhaps  no  one  in  the  whole  world  outside  of  himself  would 
have  been  able  to  perform.  The  hints  which  he  conveyed 
to  the  plenipotentiaries,  and  which  invariably  threw  a  new 
light  upon  the  points  that  they  had  not  been  able  to  see 
or  to  bring  to  a  solution,  were  something  quite  wonderful. 
All  through  our  conferences  the  personality  of  Roosevelt 


422  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

made  itself  felt,  but  this  was  done  so  artistically,  if  such 
a  word  may  be  used,  that  nobody  could  have  been  offended 
at  the  advice  which  he  tendered  with  such  consummate  dis- 
cretion. We  Russians  had  come  to  Portsmouth  without 
taking  anything  that  he  had  said  seriously,  and  yet  when 
we  left  the  United  States  it  was  with  the  knowledge  that  all 
through  our  stay  there  we  had  been  brought  in  close  prox- 
imity with  one  of  the  most  powerful  personalities  now  alive 
in  the  whole  of  the  world. 

' '  The  treaty  could  never  have  been  concluded  had  it  been 
negotiated  anywhere  else  than  at  Portsmouth,  and  if  the 
influence  of  President  Roosevelt  had  not  been  exercised  all 
along  in  the  cause  of  peace  with  a  persistence  which  com- 
manded the  admiration  of  us  all.  The  man  who  had  been 
represented  to  us  as  impetuous  to  the  point  of  rudeness 
displayed  a  gentleness,  a  kindness,  and  a  tactfulness  mixed 
with  self-control  that  only  a  truly  great  man  can  com- 
mand. ' ' 

For  his  services  in  securing  peace  Roosevelt  was  awarded 
the  Nobel  Peace  Prize.  In  acknowledgment  he  wrote,  on 
January  8,  1907: 

"I  have  received  the  medal  and  diploma  of  the  Nobel 
Prize,  and  the  check  for  $36,734.79,  being  the  amount  of 
the  prize  itself.  Thru  you  I  desire  to  extend  to  the  dis- 
tinguished body  which  has  conferred  upon  me  this  great 
honor  my  heartiest  thanks  and  the  assurance  of  my  deepest 
appreciation.  The  medal  and  diploma  will  be  prized  by  me 
thruout  my  life,  and  by  my  children  after  my  death.  I  have 
turned  over  the  money  to  a  committee,  including  the  Chief 
Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  and  the 
Secretaries  of  Agriculture  and  Commerce  and  Labor,  in 
trust,  to  be  used  as  a  foundation  for  promoting  the  cause 
of  industrial  peace  in  this  country.  In  our  modern  civiliza- 
tion it  is  as  essential  to  secure  a  righteous  peace  based  upon 
sympathy  and  fair  dealing  between  the  different  classes  of 
society  as  it  is  to  secure  such  a  peace  among  the  nations  of 
the  earth;  and  therefore  I  have  felt  that  the  use  I  have 


RUSSO-JAPANESE  CONFERENCE  423 

made  of  the  amount  of  the  Nobel  Prize  was  one  peculiarly 
in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  the  gift." 

No  use  whatever  was  made  of  the  money  by  the  commit- 
tee and  it  remained  at  interest  till  1917.  In  July  of  that 
year  the  President  requested  Congress  to  give  it  back  to 
him  that  he  might  distribute  it  among  various  charities  in 
the  United  States  and  Europe  which  were  affording  relief 
to  sufferers  from  the  European  War.  The  request  was 
granted  and  in  August,  the  entire  sum,  which  with  accrued 
interest  amounted  to  $45,482.83,  was  so  distributed  by  him. 

He  also  received  a  gift  which  he  valued  very  highly  from 
a  group  of  eminent  Frenchmen.  This  was  an  original  copy 
of  Sully's  "M&noires"  of  " Henri  le  Grand"  which  was 
sent  to  him  with  the  following  letter : 

Paris,  January,  1906. 

The  undersigned  members  of  the  French  Parliamentary 
Group  of  International  Arbitration  and  Conciliation  have 
decided  to  tender  President  Roosevelt  a  token  of  their  high 
esteem  and  their  sympathetic  recognition  of  the  persistent 
and  decisive  initiative,  he  has  taken  towards  gradually 
substituting  friendly  and  judicial  for  violent  methods  in 
case  of  conflict  between  Nations. 

They  believe  that  the  action  of  President  Roosevelt, 
which  has  realized  the  most  generous  hopes  to  be  found  in 
history,  should  be  classed  as  a  continuance  of  simjlai* illus- 
trious attempts  of  former  times,  notably  the  project  for 
international  concord  known  under  the  name  of  the  ' i  Great 
Design  of  Henry  IV"  in  the  memoirs  of  his  Prime  Minister, 
the  Duke  de  Sully.  In  consequence  they  have  sought  out 
a  copy  of  the  first  edition  of  these  memoirs,  and  they  take 
pleasure  in  offering  it  to  him,  with  the  request  that  he  will 
keep  it  among  his  family  papers. 

The  signatures  include  those  of  Emile  Loubet,  A.  Carnot, 
d'Estournelles  de  Constant,  Aristide  Briand,  Sully  Prud- 
homme,  Jean  Jaur&s,  A.  Fallieres,  R.  Poincare,  and  two 


424  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

or  three  hundred  others.    In  acknowledgment  the  President 
wrote : 

April  22,  1906. 
To  Baron  d'Estournelles  de  Constant, 

Paris. 
Permit  me  once  more  to  express  my  thanks  to  you  and 
the  other  donors  of  the  "Memoirs  of  Sully."  With  such 
signatures  the  book  becomes,  not  merely  one  of  the  two  or 
three  in  my  library  which  I  value  most,  but  that  one  which 
I  value  most.  I  am  very  deeply  touched,  my  dear  sir,  by 
this  gift,  and  I  really  do  not  know  how  sufficiently  to  ex- 
press my  appreciation.  It  is  an  empty  phrase  to  say  that 
France  is  loved  and  honored  in  America  with  peculiar  feel- 
ing. This  feeling  is  general  among  my  countrymen.  I 
have  always  shared  it;  but  I  shall  feel  it  more  than  ever 
now ;  and  I  shall  earnestly  strive  so  to  carry  myself  as  not 
to  forfeit  the  goodwill  of  you  and  the  other  friends  whose 
signatures  I  cherish.  I  wish  I  could  see  all  of  the  signers 
on  this  side  of  the  water,  but  as  that  is  impossible,  I  hope 
at  least  to  see  you. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

MESSAGES  TO  CONGRESS— PAUL  MORTON  CASE— SEN- 
ATE ACTION  ON  SANTO  DOMINGO  AND  ARBI- 
TRATION TREATIES 

The  annual  message  of  the  President  to  Congress,  in  De- 
cember, 1904,  had  been  looked  forward  to  with  unusual 
interest.  It  was  to  be  the  first  deliverance  of  the  kind  since 
he  became  the  elected  President  of  the  country.  There  was 
even  more  than  the  usual  amount  of  newspaper  guessing 
and  prediction  in  advance  as  to  what  the  message  would 
contain.  This  centered  chiefly  about  the  question  of  fur- 
ther legislation  in  the  direction  of  trusts  and  railways. 
Would  the  President  ask  for  more  stringent  laws  or  would 
he  remain  content  with  what  he  had  accomplished?  When 
the  message  appeared  all  doubt  about  his  attitude  van- 
ished. He  had  not  in  the  slightest  degree  modified  the 
position  on  these  or  any  other  subjects  that  he  had  main- 
tained with  such  vigor  and  determination  since  his  acces- 
sion to  the  Presidency.  The  Government  must  act  directly 
in  dealing  with  great  corporations,  he  said,  because  those 
corporations  can  only  become  great  by  engaging  in  inter- 
state commerce,  which  is  peculiarly  the  field  of  the  general 
government ;  and  it  is  an  absurdity  to  expect  to  eliminate 
the  abuses  in  great  corporations  by  State  action.  "  Great 
corporations  are  necessary,  and  only  men  of  great  and 
singular  mental  power  can  manage  such  corporations  suc- 
cessfully, and  such  men  must  have  great  rewards.  But 
these  corporations  should  be  managed  with  due  regard  to 
the  interests  of  the  public  as  a  whole.  Where  this  can  be 
done  under  the  present  laws  it  must  be  done.  Where  these 
laws  come  short  others  should  be  enacted  to  supplement 
them."    The  highways  of  commerce  must  be  kept  open  to 

425 


426  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

all  on  equal  terms,  and  to  do  this  a  complete  stop  must  be 
put  to  all  rebates.  The  most  important  legislative  act 
needed  in  regard  to  the  regulation  of  corporations  was  one 
' '  conferring  upon  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  the 
power  to  revise  rates  and  regulations,  the  revised  rate  to 
go  at  once  into  effect  and  to  stay  in  effect  unless  and  until 
the  court  of  review  reverses  it." 

On  the  question  of  the  rights  and  needs  of  labor,  the  mes- 
sage contained  a  deliverance  which  the  President  had  the 
opportunity  to  uphold  a  few  months  later  during  labor  riot- 
ing in  Chicago,  as  recorded  in  the  next  chapter.  "Wage- 
workers  have  an  entire  right  to  organize  and  by  all  peace- 
ful and  honorable  means  to  endeavor  to  persuade  their  fel- 
lows to  join  their  organizations.  They  have  under  no  cir- 
cumstances the  right  to  commit  violence  upon  those, 
whether  capitalists  or  wage-earners,  who  refuse  to  support 
their  organizations,  or  who  side  with  those  with  whom  they 
are  at  odds ;  for  mob  rule  is  intolerable  in  any  form. ' ' 

The  passages  in  the  message  demanding  the  abolition  of 
rebates  and  giving  to  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission 
power  to  fix  railway  rates  excited  violent  hostility  among 
the  interests  which  had  steadily  opposed  all  of  the  Presi- 
dent's efforts  to  secure  governmental  regulation  and  con- 
trol of  corporations.  There  had  been  a  law  on  the  statute 
book  for  several  years  forbidding  the  granting  of  rebates 
but  it  had  proved  ineffective,  and  the  President's  recom- 
mendation to  have  it  so  amended  as  to  put  a  stop  to  the 
practise  was  vigorously  opposed  by  the  railway  interests 
and  their  champions  in  the  press  and  in  Congress.  The 
recommendation  that  the  power  to  fix  rates  be  given  to  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission  aroused  a  great  clamor 
in  the  press  and  was  denounced  as  an  effort  to  deprive  the 
railways  of  the  right  to  manage  their  own  business.  All 
the  great  business  interests  combined  against  it  and  formed 
what  seemed  for  a  time  to  be  an  insurmountable  obstacle 
to  it.  All  the  newspapers  which  habitually  opposed  the 
President  in  matters  of  the  kind  predicted  that  there  would 
be  no  legislation  and  held  that  the  issue  had  precipitated  a 


MESSAGES  TO  CONGRESS— PAUL  MORTON  CASE  427 

permanent  breach  between  the  President  and  the  Senate, 
in  which  the  opposition  was  led  by  Senator  Aldrich  of 
Ehode  Island,  the  Republican  leader  and  most  powerful 
member  of  the  body. 

Early  in  January,  1905,  the  President  called  a  conference 
of  the  leading  members  of  both  Houses  in  his  office  and 
sought  to  induce  them  to  support  his  views.  It  became 
evident  that  a  measure  embodying  his  views  would  pass 
the  House  of  Representatives,  but  would  be  strongly  op- 
posed in  the  Senate.  On  January  30,  1905,  while  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  matter  was  at  its  height,  the  President  made 
an  address  at  the. Union  League  Club  in  Philadelphia  which 
was  regarded  as  a  challenge  to  the  opponents  of  his  meas- 
ures because  of  the  bold,  almost  defiant  tone  in  which  he 
avowed  his  position: 

"Neither  this  people  nor  any  other  free  people  will  per- 
manently tolerate  the  use  of  the  vast  power  conferred  by 
vast  wealth,  and  especially  by  wealth  in  its  corporate  form, 
without  lodging  somewhere  in  the  Government  the  still 
higher  power  of  seeing  that  this  power,  in  addition  to  being 
used  in  the  interest  of  the  individual  or  individuals  pos- 
sessing it,  is  also  used  for  and  not  against  the  interests  of 
the  people  as  a  whole. 

"In  some  such  body  as  the  Interstate  Commerce  Com- 
mission there  must  be  lodged  in  effective  shape  the  power 
to  see  that  every  shipper  who  uses  the  railroads  and  every 
man  who  owns  or  manages  a  railroad  shall  on  the  one  hand 
be  given  justice  and  on  the  other  hand  be  required  to  do 
justice.  Justice — so  far  as  it  is  humanly  possible  to  give 
and  to  get  justice — is  the  foundation  of  our  Government. 

"We  do  not  intend  that  this  Republic  shall  ever  fail  as 
those  republics  of  olden  times  failed,  in  which  there  finally 
came  to  be  a  government  by  classes,  which  resulted  either 
in  the  poor  plundering  the  rich  or  in  the  rich  exploiting  and 
in  one  form  or  another  enslaving  the  poor;  for  either  event 
means  the  destruction  of  free  institutions  and  of  indi- 
vidual liberty." 


428  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

On  February  10,  1905,  a  bill  which  had  been  introduced 
there  on  January  20,  embodying  the  Presidents  views  on 
the  power  to  fix  rates,  was  passed  in  the  House  by  an  over- 
whelming majority,  326  to  17.  This  was  hailed  by  the  press 
as  "a  great  victory  for  Roosevelt/ '  but  the  bill  was  hung 
up  in  Committee  in  the  Senate  and  no  report  was  made 
upon  it  during  the  session  which  ended  on  March  4,  1905. 
That  the  President  had  not  given  up  the  fight  is  shown 
by  this  passage  in  a  letter  to  me  on  March  23,  1905 : 

' '  That  we  shall  have  a  muss  on  the  interstate  commerce 
business  next  year  I  have  no  doubt ;  but  I  feel  that  we  can 
get  the  issue  so  clearly  drawn  that  the  Senate  will  have 
to  give  in.  On  that  issue  I  shall  have  a  number  of  my  own 
party  against  me.  My  chief  fear  is  lest  the  big  financiers, 
who,  outside  of  their  own  narrowly  limited  profession,  are 
as  foolish  as  they  are  selfish,  will  force  the  moderates  to 
join  with  the  radicals  in  radical  action,  under  penalty  of 
not  obtaining  any  at  all.  I  much  prefer  moderate  action; 
but  the  ultra-conservatives  may  make  it  necessary  to  ac- 
cept what  is  radical." 

In  similar  tone  was  this  passage  in  a  letter  to  Senator 
Lodge  on  May  24,  1905:  "The  railroads  have  been  mak- 
ing a  most  active  campaign  against  my  rate-making  prop- 
osition. They  think  they  have  it  beaten.  Personally  I  do 
not  believe  they  have,  and  I  think  they  are  very  short- 
sighted not  to  understand  that  to  beat  it  means  to  increase 
the  danger  of  the  movement  for  the  government  owner- 
ship of  railroads." 

The  President's  faith  in  success  was  shown  to  be  well- 
founded,  for  in  1906  the  Senate  passed  a  bill  which  was 
approved  by  him  and  the  Attorney  General  and  which  con- 
ferred upon  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  the 
power  to  fix  rates,  thus  giving  to  that  body  its  first  real 
control  over  the  railways. 

The  desired  additional  legislation  to  put  an  end  to  re- 
bating was  also  secured,  but  in  obtaining  it  the  President 
incurred  some  of  the  severest  criticism  of  his  career.    A 


MESSAGES  TO  CONGRESS— PAUL  MORTON  CASE  429 

member  of  his  Cabinet,  Paul  Morton,  Secretary  of  the 
Navy,  who  had  formerly  been  a  railway  official,  volunteered 
evidence  showing  the  guilt  of  his  own  company  in  the  mat- 
ter which  was  of  first  value  in  securing  the  abolition  of  the 
practise.  There  was  a  widespread  demand  in  the  press  and 
elsewhere  for  the  prosecution  by  the  Government  of  Morton 
in  the  courts.  This  the  President  refused  to  have  done. 
His  reasons  for  refusing  were  set  forth  in  a  letter,  on  June 
17,  1905,  to  the  Attorney  General,  Mr.  Moody,  who  had 
given  an  opinion  which  supported  the  President's  position. 
In  this  letter  the  President  said : 

"I  entirely  agree  with  your  conclusions.  In  my  opinion 
you  would  be  wholly  without  justification  in  proceeding 
individually  against  the  officers  of  the  Atchison,  Topeka  & 
Santa  Fe  Eailway  for  contempt  when  neither  the  Inter- 
state Commerce  Commission  nor  the  special  counsel  you 
have  employed  have  developed  a  single  fact  of  any  kind 
tending  to  implicate  any  one  of  these  officers.  One  of  the 
officers,  Mr.  Morton,  is  a  member  of  my  Cabinet.  This 
fact  is  not  to  be  allowed  to  shield  him,  nor  on  the  other 
hand  is  it  to  be  allowed  to  cause  him  to  be  singled  out,  or 
the  officers  with  whom  he  is  associated  to  be  singled  out 
for  attack." 

After  pointing  out  that  several  other  Western  railways 
had  also  been  guilty  of  rebating,  the  President  continued: 

* '  There  is  of  course  no  possible  excuse  for  discriminat- 
ing one  case  from  the  other.  Moreover,  in  this  instance 
Mr.  Morton  has  of  his  own  accord  written  me  a  letter,  of 
which  I  enclose  you  a  copy  and  a  copy  of  my  reply.  In  it 
you  will  see  that  Mr.  Morton  not  only  states  in  the  most 
unequivocal  manner  that  he  had  no  knowledge  whatever  of 
the  unlawful  practise  complained  of,  but  also  shows  by  the 
quotation  of  documents  issued  under  his  direction,  that  all 
such  unlawful  practises  were  specifically  forbidden  by  him, 
and  that  the  attention  of  his  subordinates  was  repeatedly 
called  to  the  necessity  of  complying  with  the  law  in  this 
respect.  When  there  is  not  one  shadow  of  testimony  against 


430  THEODORE  EOOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

him,  and  when  whatever  evidence  has  been  submitted  shows 
explicitly  that  he  is  not  guilty,  it  would  in  my  judgment 
be  both  absurd  and  wicked  to  proceed  against  him." 

Writing  to  Senator  Lodge  on  May  24,  1905,  the  Presi- 
dent said: 

"I  have  of  course  been  greatly  worried  about  Morton. 
He  is  as  straight  as  a  string,  but  the  Santa  Fe  management 
acted  badly  in  a  rebate  case  while  he  was  vice-president  of 
the  road  and  nominally  directed  the  department  which  cov- 
ered the  action  in  question.  I  am  convinced  that  he  knew 
nothing  of  it,  and  therefore  will  not  allow  him  to  be  prose- 
cuted in  accordance  with  the  general  demand." 

In  addition  to  the  railway  legislation  there  were  two 
other  matters  of  large  moment  which  the  President  pressed 
upon  Congress  in  the  winter  and  spring  of  1905,  and  in 
dealing  with  which  Congress  failed  to  meet  his  wishes.  One 
was  a  treaty  with  Santo  Domingo,  and  the  other  was  a  batch 
of  seven  arbitration  treaties,  uniform  in  terms,  with  Eng- 
land, France,  Germany,  Switzerland,  Portugal,  Italy  and 
Spain.  For  many  years  the  Dominican  Republic  had  been 
endeavoring  to  enter  into  treaty  relations  with  the  United 
States  by  which  it  would  be  placed  under  the  protection  of 
the  American  government,  and  had  been  steadily  refused. 
In  1903  the  representative  of  a  foreign  government  pro- 
posed to  the  United  States  the  joint  fiscal  control  of  the 
Dominican  Republic  by  certain  creditor  nations  which 
should  take  charge  of  the  custom-houses  and  revenues  and 
give  a  certain  percentage  to  the  Republic  and  pay  the  resi- 
due ratably  to  the  claims  of  foreign  countries.  This  pro- 
posal the  United  States  Government  declined.  In  January, 
1904,  the  Dominican  minister  of  foreign  affairs  visited 
Washington  and  besought  the  help  of  the  United  States 
Government  to  enable  the  republic  to  escape  financial  and 
social  disorders.  This  request  was  also  declined.  A  short 
time  later,  a  report  was  started  that  the  President  was  plan- 
ning to  annex  the  island  to  the  United  States.  Writing  to 
me  on  February  23,  1904,  he  said : 


MESSAGES  TO  CONGRESS— PAUL  MORTON  CASE     431 

"I  have  been  hoping  and  praying  for  three  months  that 
the  Santo  Domingans  would  behave  so  that  I  would  not  have 
to  act  in  any  way.  I  want  to  do  nothing  but  what  a  police- 
man has  to  do  in  Santo  Domingo.  As  for  annexing  the 
island,  I  have  about  the  same  desire  to  annex  it  as  a  gorged 
boa  constrictor  might  have  to  swallow  a  porcupine  wrong- 
end-to.  Is  that  strong  enough?  I  have  asked  some  of  our 
people  to  go  there  because,  after  having  refused  for  three 
months  to  do  anything,  the  attitude  of  the  Santo  Domingans 
has  become  one  of  half  chaotic  war  towards  us.  If  I  pos- 
sibly can  I  want  to  do  nothing  to  them.  If  it  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  do  something,  then  I  want  to  do  as  little  as 
possible.  Their  government  has  been  bedeviling  us  to 
establish  some  kind  of  a  protectorate  over  the  islands,  and 
take  charge  of  their  finances.  We  have  been  answering 
them  that  we  could  not  possibly  go  into  the  subject  now 
at  all." 

\ 

Nearly  a  year  later  the  President,  on  Feb.  15,  1905,  sent 

a  special  message  to  Congress  submitting  a  treaty  which 
he  had  concluded  with  Santo  Domingo  at  the  request  of  its 
government,  under  which  the  custom-houses  of  the  republic 
were  to  be  placed  under  American  control,  45  per  cent  of 
the  proceeds  to  be  turned  over  to  the  Dominican  govern- 
ment and  the  remainder  to  be  used  by  the  United  States 
to  pay  on  equitable  basis  such  a  proportion  of  the  foreign 
debts  as  was  possible.  The  President  announced  that  no 
step  had  been  taken  by  the  Administration  under  the  terms 
of  the  treaty,  saying  of  it : 

"We  on  our  part  are  simply  performing  in  peaceful 
manner,  not  only  with  the  cordial  acquiescence,  but  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  earnest  request  of  the  government  con- 
cerned, part  of  that  international  duty  which  is  necessarily 
involved  in  the  assertion  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine. 

"I  call  attention  to  the  urgent  need  of  prompt  action  on 
this  matter.  We  now  have  a  great  opportunity  to  secure 
peace  and  stability  in  the  island,  without  friction  or  blood- 
shed, by  acting  in  accordance  with  the  cordial  invitation  of 


432  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

the  governmental  authorities  themselves.  It  will  be  un- 
fortunate from  every  standpoint  if  we  fail  to  grasp  this 
opportunity ;  for  such  failure  will  probably  mean  increas- 
ing revolutionary  violence  in  Santo  Domingo,  and  very 
possibly  embarrassing  foreign  complications  in  addition. 
This  protocol  affords  a  practical  test  of  the  efficiency  of  the 
United  States  Government  in  maintaining  the  Monroe  Doc- 
trine.' ' 

The  Senate  paid  little  or  no  attention  to  the  treaty,  and 
on  March  6,  1905,  the  Senate  being  then  in  executive  ses- 
sion, the  President  sent  to  it  another  special  message  urg- 
ing action  at  as  early  a  moment  as  possible  and  saying : 

' '  Santo  Domingo  grievously  needs  the  aid  of  a  powerful 
and  friendly  nation.  This  aid  we  are  able,  and  I  trust  that 
we  are  willing,  to  bestow.  She  has  asked  for  this  aid,  and 
the  expressions  of  friendship  repeatedly  sanctioned  by  the 
people  and  the  Government  of  the  United  States  warrant 
her  in  believing  that  it  will  not  be  withheld  in  the  hour  of 
her  need/ ' 

Nothing  resulted  from  this  second  appeal  save  long  de- 
bates on  the  treaty  and  the  adoption  of  trivial  amendments, 
and  the  Senate  adjourned  leaving  the  treaty  unaffirmed. 
Writing  to  me,  on  March  23,  1905,  the  President  gave  this 
interesting  statement  of  his  views  on  a  third  term  and  the 
effect  of  his  attitude  upon  the  Senate : 

"I  did  not  make  my  announcement  that  I  would  not  ac- 
cept another  term,  without  thinking  it  carefully  over  and 
coming  to  a  definite  and  final  conclusion.  If  you  will  recall 
the  words  I  used  you  will  remember  that  I  not  merely  stated 
that  I  would  not  be  a  candidate ;  I  added  that  I  would  not 
under  any  circumstances  accept  the  nomination.  And  I 
would  not. 

4  *  Unquestionably  this  announcement  caused  me  a  little 
trouble  in  the  Senate,  the  men  coming  to  the  conclusion  that 
I  need  not  be  regarded  as  a  factor  hereafter.  But  I  think 
the  trouble  between  me  and  the  Senate  has  been  rather 


MESSAGES  TO  CONGRESS— PAUL  MORTON  CASE  433 

exaggerated,  and  I  have  endeavored  to  minimize,  not  em- 
phasize, it.  I  do  not  much  admire  the  Senate,  because  it  is 
such  a  helpless  body  when  efficient  work  for  good  is  to  be 
done.  Two  or  three  determined  Senators  seem  able  to  hold 
up  legislation,  or  at  least  good  legislation,  in  an  astonish- 
ing way;  but  the  worst  thing  the  Senate  did  this  year— 
the  failure  to  confirm  the  Santo  Domingo  treaty — was  due 
to  the  fact  that  the  Democratic  party  as  such  went  solidly 
against  us,  and  this  fact,  coupled  with  the  absence  of  cer- 
tain Republican  Senators,  rendered  us  helpless  to  put 
through  the  treaty.  The  result  has  been  that  I  am  in  a  very 
awkward  and  unpleasant  situation  in  endeavoring  to  keep 
foreign  powers  off  Santo  Domingo  and  also  in  trying  to 
settte  Venezuelan  affairs." 

After  the  adjournment  of  Congress  the  President,  acting 
in  accordance  with  his  established  principle  that  while  the 
Constitution  did  not  explicitly  give  him  power  to  act  in 
such  cases,  it  did  not  forbid  him  to  do  so,  put  the  agreement 
into  effect. 

Writing  confidentially  on  March  30,  1905,  to  Secretary 
Hay,  who  was  in  Germany,  the  President  gave  this  humor- 
ous account  of  the  situation : 

"  There  has  been  a  rather  comic  development  in  the 
Santo  Domingo  case.  Morales  asked  us  to  take  over  the 
custom-houses  pending  action  by  the  Senate.  I  decided 
to  do  so,  but  first  of  all  consulted  Spooner,  Foraker,  Lodge 
and  Knox.  All  heartily  agreed  that  it  was  necessary  for 
me  to  take  this  action.  Rather  to  my  horror  Taft  genially 
chaffed  them  about  going  back  on  their  principles  as  to  the 
'usurpation  of  the  executive.'  But  they  evidently  took  the 
view  that  it  was  not  a  time  to  be  over-particular  about 
trifles.  I  also  consulted  Gorman,  who  told  me  that  he  had 
taken  it  for  granted  that  I  would  have  to  take  some  such 
action  as  that  proposed,  and  believed  it  necessary.  I  un- 
derstand, however,  that  this  was  merely  his  unofficial  opin- 
ion, and  that  officially  he  is  going  to  condemn  our  action 
as  realizing  his  worst  forebodings." 


434  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Having  put  the  agreement  into  effect,  the  President  did 
not  hesitate  to  use  force  in  upholding  it,  in  case  force  should 
be  needed  to  maintain  order.  When  signs  of  internal 
trouble  appeared  in  the  island  in  the  fall  of  1905,  he  sent 
this  order  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  referring  to  the 
commander  of  a  naval  vessel  near  the  island,  under  date  of 
September  5,  1905: 

"As  to  the  Santo  Domingo  matter,  tell  Admiral  Brad- 
ford to  stop  any  revolution.  I  intend  to  keep  the  island  in 
statu  quo  until  the  Senate  has  had  time  to  act  on  the  treaty, 
and  I  shall  treat  any  revolutionary  movement  as  an  effort 
to  upset  the  modus  Vivendi.  That  this  is  ethically  right, 
I  am  dead  sure,  even  though  there  may  be  some  technical 
or  red  tape  difficulty." 

When  Congress  came  together  in  December,  1905,  the 
President  included  in  his  annual  message  a  quiet  statement 
of  what  he  had  done,  making  neither  defense  nor  apology. 
He  merely  said  that  the  Executive  Department  of  the  Gov- 
ernment had  negotiated  a  treaty  under  which  "we  are  to 
try  to  help  the  Dominican  people  to  straighten  out  their 
finances,"  that  the  "treaty  is  pending  before  the  Senate," 
and  that  "in  the  meantime  a  temporary  arrangement  has 
been  made  which  will  last  until  the  Senate  has  time  to  take 
action  on  the  treaty.  .  .  .  Every  consideration  of  wise  pol- 
icy, and,  above  all,  every  consideration  of  large  generosity, 
bids  us  meet  the  request  of  Santo  Domingo  as  we  are  now 
trying  to  meet  it."  The  Senate  discussed  the  treaty  for 
two  years,  and  during  that  period  the  President  continued 
its  execution ;  finally,  in  the  spring  of  1907,  the  Senate  rati- 
I  fied  it  with  unimportant  amendments  which  the  President 
\  easily  induced  Santo  Domingo  to  accept.  The  results  of 
his  action  were  described  by  the  President  in  a  speech  be- 
fore the  Harvard  Union  on  February  13,  1907 : 

"I  was  immensely  amused  when  at  a  professional  peace 
meeting  the  other  day,  they  incidentally  alluded  to  me  as 
having  made  'war'  on  Santo  Domingo.  The  war  I  have 
made  literally  consists  in  having  loaned  them  a  collector 


MESSAGES  TO  CONGRESS— PAUL  MORTON  CASE  435 

of  customs,  at  their  request.  We  now  give  them  forty-five 
per  cent,  of  the  customs  to  run  the  Government,  and  the 
other  fifty-five  per  cent,  is  put  up  to  pay  those  of  their  debts 
which  are  found  to  be  righteous.  This  arrangement  has 
gone  on  for  two  years  now,  while  the  coordinate  branch  of 
the  Government  discussed  whether  or  not  I  had  usurped 
power  in  the  matter,  and  finally  concluded  I  had  not,  and 
ratified  the  treaty.  Of  the  fifty-five  per  cent,  we  have  been 
able  to  put  two  and  a  half  millions  toward  paying  their 
debts;  and  with  the  forty-five  per  cent,  that  we  collected 
for  them  they  have  received  more  money  than  they  ever  got 
when  they  collected  one  hundred  per  cent,  themselves ;  and 
the  island  has  prospered  as  never  before.  I  feel  like  para- 
phrasing Patrick  Henry:  'If  this  is  "war,"  make  the  most 
of  it.'"  ^ 

The  Senate's  course  in  relation  to  the  seven  general 
arbitration  treaties  was  in  line  with  the  President's  de- 
scription of  its  methods  in  his  letter  of  March  23  to  me, 
quoted  above.  These  treaties  provided  for  reference  to 
The  Hague  Tribunal,  by  mutual  agreement,  of  all  minor 
disputes  not  involving  national  honor.  They  were  sub- 
mitted to  the  Senate  on  January  6,  1905,  and  it  was  at  once 
made  known  that  many  Senators  were  in  favor  of  amend- 
ing them  in  a  way  which  the  President  considered  to  be 
fatal  to  their  usefulness.  On  February  10,  1905,  the  Presi- 
dent wrote  a  letter  of  protest  to  Senator  Cullom,  Chairman 
of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations,  in  which  he  said: 

"I  learn  that  the  Senate  Committee  on  Foreign  Rela- 
tions has  reported  the  arbitration  treaties  to  the  Senate, 
amending  them  by  substituting  for  the  word  ' agreement' 
in  the  second  article  the  word  ' treaty.' 

"The  effect  of  the  amendment  is  to  make  it  no  longer 
possible,  as  between  its  contracting  parties,  to  submit  any 
matter  whatever  to  arbitration  without  first  obtaining  a 
special  treaty  to  cover  the  case.  This  will  represent  not 
a  step  forward  but  a  step  backward.  If  the  word  'treaty' 
be  substituted,  the  result  is  that  every  such  agreement 


436  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

must  be  submitted  to  the  Senate;  and  these  general  arbi- 
tration treaties  would  then  cease  to  be  such,  and  indeed  in 
their  amended  form  they  amount  to  a  specific  pronounce- 
ment against  the  whole  principle  of  a  general  arbitration 
treaty. 

"The  Senate  has,  of  course,  the  absolute  right  to  reject* 
or  to  amend  in  any  way  it  sees  fit  any  treaty  laid  before  it, 
and  it  is  clearly  the  duty  of  the  Senate  to  take  any  step 
which,  in  the  exercise  of  its  best  judgment,  it  deems  to  be 
for  the  interest  of  the  nation.  If,  however,  in  the  judgment 
of  the  President,  a  given  amendment  nullifies  a  proposed 
treaty,  it  seems  to  me  that  it  is  no  less  clearly  his  duty  to 
refrain  from  endeavoring  to  secure  a  ratification,  by  the 
other  contracting  power  or  powers,  of  the  amended  treaty ; 
and  after  much  thought  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
I  ought  to  write  and  tell  you  that  such  is  my  judgment  in 
this  case." 

The  clear  notification  in  the  closing  passage  of  this  letter, 
that  if  the  amendment  was  adopted  the  President  would 
abandon  the  treaties,  was  not  heeded,  for  in  executive  ses- 
sion, on  February  11,  1905,  the  treaties  as  amended  by  the 
Committee  were  ratified.  When  they  reached  the  Presi- 
dent, Secretary  Hay,  on  February  13,  1905,  made  the  fol- 
lowing statement,  which  he  had  drawn  up  in  accordance 
with  the  President  's  instructions : 

"The  President  regards  the  matter  of  the  general  arbi- 
tration treaties  as  concluded  by  the  action  of  the  Senate  on 
Saturday.  He  recognizes  the  right  of  the  Senate  to  reject 
a  treaty  either  by  a  direct  vote  in  that  sense,  or  indirectly 
by  changes  which  are  incompatible  with  its  spirit  and  pur- 
pose. He  considers  that  with  the  Senate  amendment  the 
treaties  not  only  cease  to  be  a  step  forward  in  the  cause  of 
general  arbitration  but  are  really  a  step  backward,  and 
therefore  he  is  unable  to  present  them  in  this  altered  form 
to  the  countries  with  which  we  have  been  in  negotiation.  • ' 

In  conversation  with  me  at  the  time,  Secretary  Hay  ex- 
pressed himself  as  disheartened  and  completely  discour- 


MESSAGES  TO  CONGRESS— PAUL  MORTON  CASE     437 

aged  by  the  result,  saying  that  the  treaties  represented 
many  months  of  painstaking  labor  and  were  regarded  as  a 
valuable  advance  in  the  cause  of  general  arbitration.  He 
added  that,  in  his  judgment,  it  was  quite  useless  to  make 
further  effort  since  the  ratification  of  any  really  desirable 
or  useful  arbitration  treaty  eould  not  be  hoped  for  in  the 
present  temper  of  the  Senate.  Among  those  supporting  the 
amendment  were  Senators  Lodge  and  Spooner,  both  of 
whom  expressed  great  regret  because  they  found  them- 
selves unable  to  agree  with  the  President. 

After  Hay's  death,  Secretary  Eoot,  who  succeeded  him 
in  the  State  Department,  took  up  the  treaties,  accepted  the 
Senate  amendment,  and  ratifications  were  exchanged  with 
the  seven  foreign  governments  concerned.  They  proved 
to  be  absolutely  useless,  and  so  far  as  they  had  any  effect, 
it  was  to  lower  the  standard  which  the  American  Govern- 
ment had  previously  maintained  upon  the  question  of  in- 
ternational arbitration. 

Dr.  John  Bassett  Moore,  the  recognized  authority  on  in-  " 
ternational  law,  said  of  their  effect,  in  an  address  that  he 
delivered  at  the  Lake  Mohonk  Conference  on  International 
Arbitration,  on  May  27,  1914:  • 

"The  result  of  the  Senate's  action  is,  that  so  far  as  the 
United  States  is  concerned,  it  is  in  practice  more  difficult 
to  secure  international  arbitration  than  it  was  in  the  early 
days  of  our  independence." 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

REBUKES    -TO    RIOTOUS    STRIKERS    AND    LYNCHERS— 

DEALINGS  WITH  SENATORS— LETTERS 

ON  VARIOUS  TOPICS 

Eakly  in  April,  1905,  the  President  left  Washington  to  at- 
tend a  reunion  of  his  Rough  Rider  regiment  at  San  Antonio, 
Texas,  on  the  7th  of  that  month,  and  later  went  on  a  short 
hunting  trip  in  Colorado.  On  the  eve  of  his  departure  he 
made  a  remark  which  had  wide  circulation:  "Oh,  things 
will  be  all  right ;  I  have  left  Taf t  sitting  on  the  lid. ' '  He 
delivered  addresses  at  various  points  in  Texas,  including 
one  before  the  Legislature  of  the  State,  in  each  of  which  he 
expounded  his  views  in  regard  to  Government  regulation 
and  control  of  corporations  and  railways.  He  was  greeted 
with  great  enthusiasm  everywhere.  On  his  return  trip  he 
reached  Chicago  on  May  10,  at  the  moment  when  a  general 
strike  of  labor  unions  was  in  progress.  A  committee  of 
the  strikers  called  upon  him  to  present  their  cause  and  se- 
cure his  sympathy.  What  happened  was  described  by  the 
President  later  in  two  letters  that  he  wrote  after  reaching 
Washington.  The  first  was  to  Mr.  Root,  on  May  13,  1905 : 
' '  Perhaps  the  thing  that  pleased  me  most  was  in  Chicago 
when  the  labor  men  called  upon  me.  A  good  many  people 
had  been  anxious  that  I  should  dodge  Chicago,  which  of 
course  I  would  not  have  been  willing  to  do  under  any  cir- 
cumstances. As  it  turned  out,  the  labor  people  called  on 
me  themselves  and  made  a  statement  most  foolish  and  of- 
fensive, so  that  they  justified  me  completely  in  saying  good- 
temperedly,  but  with  unmistakable  emphasis,  just  what  my 
attitude  was  and  would  be  in  regard  to  mobs  and  disorder 
generally. ' ' 

438 


REBUKES  TO  RIOTOUS  STRIKERS  AND  LYNCHERS     439 

The  second  was  to  Senator  Lodge,  who  was  at  the  time 
in  London,  on  May  15,  1905 : 

"When  I  came  to  Chicago  I  found  a  very  ugly  strike, 
on  account  of  which  some  of  my  nervous  friends  wished  me 
to  try  to  avoid  the  city.  Of  course  I  hadn't  the  slightest 
intention  of  doing  so.  I  get  very  much  puzzled  at  times  on 
questions  of  finance  and  the  tariff,  but  when  it  comes  to 
such  a  perfectly  simple  matter  as  keeping  order,  then  you 
strike  my  long  suit.  The  strikers  were  foolish  enough  to 
come  to  me  on  their  own  initiative  and  make  me  an  address 
in  which  they  quoted  that  fine  flower  of  Massachusetts 
statesmanship,  the  lamented  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  who  had 
told  rioters  at  one  time,  as  it  appeared,  that  they  need 
have  no  fear  of  the  United  States  army,  as  they  had  torches 
and  arms.  This  gave  me  a  good  opening,  and  while  per- 
fectly polite,  I  used  language  so  simple  that  they  could 
not  misunderstand  it;  and  repeated  the  same  with  am- 
plifications at  the  dinner  that  night.  So  if  the  rioting  in 
Chicago  gets  beyond  the  control  of  the  State  and  the  City, 
they  now  know  well  that  the  Eegulars  will  come. ' ' 

What  the  President  said  to  the  spokesman  of  the  strikers, 
Mr.  Shea,  who  had  presented  a  letter  stating  their  case, 
was  this: 

"I  regret  that  you  should  in  the  letter  have  spoken  at  all 
of  the  use  of  the  Federal  army,  as  you  have  there  spoken. 
No  request  has  been  made  to  me  for  action  by  the  Federal 
Government,  but  at  the  same  time,  Mr.  Shea,  as  you  have 
in  this  communication  brought  up  the  matter,  I  want  to 
say  one  thing  with  all  the  emphasis  in  my  power.  In  up- 
holding the  law  and  order,  in  doing  what  he  is  able  to  do 
to  suppress  mob  violence  in  any  shape  or  way,  the  Mayor 
of  Chicago,  Mayor  Dunne,  has  my  hearty  support.  I  am 
glad  to  be  able  to  say  this  to  you,  gentlemen,  before  I  say 
it  to  another  body. 

"Now,- let  me  repeat  that  I  know  nothing  of  the  facts  of 
the  situation.  I  know  nothing  of  the  right  or  wrong  of  the 
points  at  issue.    What  I  have  to  say  is  based  partly  upon 


440  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

what  I  regard  as  the  unfortunate  phrasing  of  a  letter  pre- 
sented to  the  President  of  the  United  States. 

"I  have  not  been  called  upon  to  interfere  in  any  way, 
but  you  must  not  misunderstand  my  attitude.  In  every 
effort  of  Mayor  Dunne  to  prevent  violence  by  mobs  or  in- 
dividuals, to  see  that  the  laws  are  obeyed,  and  that  order 
is  preserved,  he  has  the  hearty  support  of  the  President  of 
the  United  States,  and,  in  my  judgment,  he  should  have 
that  of  every  good  citizen  of  the  United  States. 

"I  am  a  believer  in  unions.  I  am  an  honorary  member 
of  one  union.  But  the  union  must  obey  the  law  just  as  the 
corporation  must  obey  the  law.  Just  as  every  man,  rich  or 
poor,  must  obey  the  law.  As  yet,  no  action  has  been  called 
for  by  me  and  most  certainly  if  action  is  called  for  I  shall 
try  to  do  justice  under  the  law  to  every  man,  so  far  as  I 
have  power.  But  the  first  essential  is  the  preservation  of 
law  and  order,  the  suppression  of  violence  by  mobs  or  in- 
dividuals. ' ' 

At  a  dinner  which  the  Iroquois  Club,  a  Democratic  or- 
ganization, gave  him  on  the  evening  of  the  same  day,  the 
President  repeated  substantially  what  he  had  said  to  the 
strikers'  committee,  and  turning  directly  to  Mayor  Dunne, 
who  was  seated  near  him,  said: 

"Mr.  Mayor,  as  President  of  the  United  States,  and 
therefore  as  representative  of  the  people  of  this  country, 
I  give  you,  as  a  matter  of  course,  my  hearty  support  in  up- 
holding the  law,  in  keeping  order,  in  putting  down  violence, 
whether  by  a  mob  or  by  an  individual.  There  need  not  be 
the  slightest  apprehension  in  the  heart  of  the  most  timid 
that  ever  the  mob  spirit  will  triumph  in  this  country.  Those 
immediately  responsible  for  dealing  with  the  trouble  must, 
as  I  know  you  feel,  exhaust  every  effort  in  so  dealing  with 
it  before  a  call  is  made  upon  any  outside  body.  But  if  ever 
the  need  arises,  back  of  the  city  stands  the  State,  and  back 
of  the  State  stands  the  Nation.' ' 

In  acknowledging  the  President's  letter  Mr.  Boot  wrote 
on  May  16,  1905 : 


REBUKES  TO  RIOTOUS  STRIKERS  AND  LYNCHERS     441 

"I  was  particularly  pleased  by  the  way  in  which  you 
treated  the  labor  situation  in  Chicago.  I  doubt  if  most 
people  realize  what  a  very  important  and  critical  situation 
was  created  by  the  presentation  of  the  labor  address.  Most 
men  in  your  position  would  have  taken  the  paper  for  fur- 
ther examination  and  have  dismissed  the  committee  with 
the  promise  to  give  it  consideration ;  and  there  would  have 
been  the  devil  to  pay  afterwards.  Your  character  was, 
however,  exactly  adapted  for  the  best  possible  treatment 
of  the  emergency,  and  I  think  that  your  instant  reading  of 
the  paper  and  instant  response  was  one  of  the  very  best 
things  you  have  ever  done." 

Secretary  Hay,  who  was  at  Bad  Nauheim,  Germany,  for 
his  health,  wrote  under  date  of  May  21,  1905 : 

"I  need  not  tell  you  with  what  pride  and  pleasure  we 
all  read  your  speech  at  Chicago.  It  has  the  true  ring  of 
conscience  and  authority  combined, — the  voice  of  a  man 
1  who  would  not  flatter  Neptune  for  his  trident. '  It  is  a  com- 
fort to  see  the  most  popular  man  in  America  telling  the 
truth  to  our  masters,  the  people.  It  requires  no  courage 
to  attack  wealth  and  power,  but  to  remind  the  masses  that 
they,  too,  are  subject  to  the  law,  is  something  few  public 
men  dare  to  do." 

The  President  gave  another  illustration  of  his  courage 
in  October,  1905,  when  he  made  a  tour  of  the  South,  speak- 
ing at  various  points  in  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Georgia, 
Arkansas  and  Alabama,  including  a  visit  to  the  home  of 
his  mother  at  Roswell,  Georgia.  At  Little  Rock,  Arkansas, 
on  October  25,  he  was  introduced  by  the  Governor  of  the 
State  to  a  large  concourse  of  citizens  in  the  City  Park.  In  his 
introductory  remarks  the  Governor  made  a  quasi  defense  of 
the  lynching  of  colored  men  for  supposed  outrages  upon 
white  women.  In  opening  his  speech  the  President  de- 
clared that  he  had  been  fortunate  enough  to  have  spoken 
all  over  the  Union  and  had  never  said  in  any  State  or  any 
section  what  he  would  not  have  said  in  any  other  State  or 


442  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

in  any  other  section.    Turning  a  few  minutes  later  directly 
to  the  Governor,  he  said: 

"  Governor,  you  spoke  of  a  hideous  crime  that  is  often 
hideously  avenged.  The  worst  enemy  of  the  negro  race 
is  the  negro  criminal,  and,  above  all,  the  negro  criminal  of 
that  type;  for  he  has  committed  not  only  an  unspeakably 
dreadful  and  infamous  crime  against  the  victim,  but  he  has 
committed  a  hideous  crime  against  the  people  of  his  own 
color ;  and  every  reputable  colored  man,  every  colored  man 
who  wishes  to  see  the  uplifting  of  his  race,  owes  it  as  his 
first  duty  to  himself  and  to  that  race  to  hunt  down  that 
criminal  with  all  his  soul  and  strength.  Now  for  the  side 
of  the  white  man.  To  avenge  one  hideous  crime  by  another 
hideous  crime  is  to  reduce  the  man  doing  it  to  the  bestial 
level  of  the  wretch  who  committed  the  bestial  crime.  The 
horrible  effects  of  the  lynchings  are  not  for  that  crime  at 
all,  but  for  other  crimes.  And  above  all  other  men,  Gov- 
ernor, you  and  I  and  all  who  are  exponents  and  representa- 
tives of  the  law,  owe  it  to  our  people,  owe  it  to  the  cause  of 
civilization  and  humanity,  to  do  everything  in  our  power, 
officially  and  unofficially,  directly  and  indirectly,  to  free  the 
United  States  from  the  menace  and  reproach  of  lynch  law." 

This  courageous  deliverance  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
country  in  which  lynching  was  a  not  infrequent  practise, 
commanded  widespread  approval. 

In  the  summer  of  1905  several  instances  arose  in  which 
the  President  felt  moved  to  very  plain  speech  with  Senators 
who  sought  to  have  him  make  unfit  appointments  in  the 
civil  service,  or  improper  promotions  in  the  army,  or  to 
shield  some  person  in  the  service  who  had  been  found  guilty 
of  misconduct.  The  same  Oregon  Senator  whom  he  had 
rebuked  in  1904  and  whom  he  afterwards  forced  into  the 
penitentiary,  wrote  him  an  impudent  letter  in  May,  1905. 
In  replying,  on  the  15th  of  that  month,  the  President  wrote 
a  long  letter,  saying  at  the  close : 

"My  dear  Senator,  you  have  written  me  very  frankly. 
I  shall  copy  your  frankness  in  this  closing  paragraph.    It 


REBUKES  TO  RIOTOUS  STRIKERS  AND  LYNCHERS     443 

has  been  most  unfortunate  that  so  many  of  the  friends 
upon  whose  behalf  you  have  been  active  should  be  among 
those  whose  guilt  is  clearest  and  deepest.  I  entirely  appre- 
ciate loyalty  to  one's  friends,  but  loyalty  to  the  cause  of 
justice  and  honor  stands  above  it.  I  think  you  are  doing 
yourself  an  injury  by  permitting  yourself  to  be  made  at 
least  to  seem  to  stand  as  the  champion  of  the  men  who  have 
been  engaged  in  this  widespread  conspiracy  to  defraud  the 
United  States  Government  and  therefore  the  public  of  your 
own  State.  .  .  .  You  criticize  very  captiously  what  has 
been  done  and  said  by  all  those  whose  efforts  have  resulted 
in  the  uncovering  of  this  great  wrong,  and  of  the  partial 
punishment  of  some  of  the  wrongdoers.  It  is  easy  to 
ascribe  such  motives  and  to  make  such  criticisms ;  but  what 
is  needed  now  is  not  the  picking  of  holes  in  those  who  are 
engaged  in  the  great  work  of  righteousness,  but  the  sturdy 
upholding  of  their  hands  just  so  long  as  they  are  doing 
this  work. 

uIam  from  my  position  the  leader  of  the  entire  Kepub- 
lican  party  throughout  the  Union,  in  Oregon  just  as  much 
as  in  New  York;  and  in  Oregon  and  New  York  alike  I  shall 
count  it  not  an  attack  upon,  but  a  service  to,  the  Bepubli- 
can  party  if  through  my  agents  I  can  be  instrumental  in 
punishing  in  the  severest  possible  manner  any  private  citi- 
zen, and  especially  any  public  servant,  who  while  claiming 
to  be  a  member  of  that  party  has  deeply  wronged  it  by 
wronging  the  Nation  which  the  party  was  created  to  serve. 
When  the  party  ceases  to  serve  the  Nation  it  will  lose  its 
reason  for  existence ;  and  most  emphatically  I  shall  never, 
under  any  pressure  or  for  any  reason  whatever,  permit 
any  alleged  considerations  of  partisan  expediency  to  pre- 
vent my  punishing  any  wrongdoer,  whether  he  belongs  to 
my  party  or  any  other. ' ' 

To  a  plea  from  Senator  Piatt  of  New  York  for  clemency 
toward  a  man  who  had  been  dismissed  from  the  service, 
tbe  President  sent  this  terse  communication  on  May  22, 
1905:    "He  was  heard  in  full  and  given  ample  opportunity 


444  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

to  defend  himself.  He  was  thoroughly  investigated,  and 
not  only  was  it  necessary  to  dismiss  him,  but  it  may  be 
necessary  to  indict  him." 

A  Vermont  Senator  was  persistent  in  seeking  to  have 
an  officer  in  the  army  promoted  as  a  personal  favor.  To 
him  the  President  wrote  on  June  3,  1905 : 

"In  your  previous  letters  you  will  remember  that  you 
stated  that  you  were  anxious  to  secure  i  Vermont  promo- 
tions.' In  other  words,  you  have  desired  that  the  promo- 
tions in  the  Army  should  be  given  primarily,  not  because 
the  man  promoted  is  the  best  man  for  the  position,  but  to 
gratify  a  certain  outside  individual  or  to  '  recognize '  a 
certain  State.  Now  I  cannot  possibly  permit  such  practises 
in  the  Army.  It  is  this  kind  of  practise,  carried  to  an  ex- 
treme, which  brings  utter  demoralization  to  the  service, 
and  in  the  end,  rottenness.  Surely  it  ought  to  be  axiomatic 
that  the  quality  and  record  of  the  individual  officer  and  the 
needs  of  the  service  should  alone  be  considered.  .  .  . 

"When  I  uphold  the  hands  of  the  General  Staff  by  tak- 
ing their  recommendations  for  promotion  as  against  those 
of  any  outsider,  no  matter  how  influential,  no  matter  how 
powerful,  I  am  doing  my  best  to  prevent  our  little  army 
from  being  reduced  to  a  condition  which  would  be  only  one 
degree  above  that  to  which  it  would  be  reduced  if  I  toler- 
ated actual  corruption.  In  so  acting,  it  seems  to  me  that 
I  am  entitled  to  the  support  of  every  good  American  who 
feels  that  the  Army  is  the  property  of  the  Nation,  and  not 
of  one  party,  still  less  of  any  individual  in  that  party.  I 
can  no  more  allow  it  to  be  run  in  the  interest  of  politicians 
than  I  could  allow  it  to  be  run  in  the  interest  of  contractors 
or  patentees.  It  is  to  be  run  in  the  interest  of  the  entire 
American  people,  and  with  an  eye  single  to  making  it  the 
best  that  it  can  possibly  be  made." 

To  a  Senator  from  an  eastern  State  whose  views  on  the 
proper  use  of  public  office  were  permanently  antagonistic 
to  those  of  the  President,  the  latter  wrote  on  July  7,  1905 : 

"Of  course  I  should  always  like  to  do  anything  you  ask, 


EEBUKES  TO  RIOTOUS  STRIKERS  AND  LYNCHERS     445 

and  it  is  a  matter  of  regret  to  me  that  I  am  unable  to  ap- 
point your  grandson  District  Attorney  of  the  District  of 
Columbia  as  you  request.  If  I  felt  that  I  conscientiously 
could  do  so  with  due  regard  to  the  interest  of  the  Govern- 
ment and  of  the  people  of  the  District  I  should  be  really 
pleased.  We  have  had  difficulty  in  the  office  and  I  have 
directed  the  choice  to  be  made  with  peculiar  care  to  obtain 
the  best  man  possible.  With  all  these  quasi  judicial  or 
legal  positions  I  am  obliged  to  exercise  peculiar  care." 

Amid  all  the  duties  that  crowded  upon  Eoosevelt  in  1905 
he  found  time  to  indulge  his  love  of  reading  and  to  conduct 
a  voluminous  correspondence  with  all  sorts  of  people  on 
all  sorts  of  subjects.  While  he  was  busy  arranging  the 
Russo-Japanese  Conference  he  was  reading  and  absorbing 
a  book  which  carried  him  back  into  the  13th  Century,  after- 
wards writing,  on  July  11,  to  the  French  Ambassador,  M. 
Jusserand,  this  learned  criticism  of  its  contents : 

"I  read  Cahun's  ' Turks  and  Mongols'  with  such  thor- 
oughness and  assiduity  that  at  the  end  it  was  dangling  out 
of  the  covers,  and  I  have  sent  it  to  Washington  to  have  it 
bound,  with  directions  to  deliver  it  to  you. 

"I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  loaning  it  to  me, 
and  I  have  been  immensely  interested  in  it.  It  is  extraor- 
dinary how  little  the  average  European  historian  has 
understood  the  real  significance  of  the  immense  Mongol 
movement  of  the  13th  Century  and  its  connection  with  the 
previous  history  of  the  Turks,  Mongols,  and  similar 
peoples.  Until  I  read  Cahun  I  never  understood  the  se- 
quence of  cause  and  effect  and  never  appreciated  the  his- 
toric importance  of  the  existence  of  the  vast,  loosely-bound 
Turkish  power  of  the  5th  and  6th  centuries  and  of  its 
proposition  to  unite  with  the  Byzantines  for  the  overthrow 
of  the  Persians.  Moreover,  it  is  astounding  that  military 
critics  have  given  so  little  space  to,  or  rather  have  totally 
disregarded,  the  extraordinary  Mongol  campaigns  of  the 
13th  Century. 

"I  doubt  if  the  average  military  critic  so  much  as  knows 


446  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

of  the  existence  of  Sabutai,  who  won  sixty  victories  on 
pitched  fields  and  went  from  the  Yellow  Sea  to  the  Adri- 
atic, trampling  Kussia  into  the  dust,  overrunning  Hungary 
and  Poland,  and  defeating  with  inferior  numbers  the  picked 
chivalry  of  Germany  as  he  had  already  defeated  the  Man- 
chu,  the  Corean,  and  the  Chinese.  Moreover  the  victo- 
ries were  not  won  by  brute  superiority  of  numbers.  The 
armies  of  the  Mongols  were  not  at  all  what  we  understand 
when  we  speak  of  hordes.  They  were  marvelously  trained 
bodies  wherein  the  prowess  of  the  individual  soldier  was 
only  less  remarkable  than  the  perfect  obedience,  precision 
and  effectiveness  with  which  he  did  his  part  in  carrying  out 
the  tactical  and  strategic  schemes  of  the  generals. 

"For  a  Frenchman,  Cahun  is  dry;  but  the  dryness  of 
writers  of  your  race,  if  they  are  good  at  all,  is  miles  asun- 
der from  the  hopeless  aridity  of  similar  writers  among  our 
people.  Cahun  has  a  really  fine  phrase,  for  instance — a 
phrase  that  tells  an  important  truth  when  he  contrasts 
the  purely  personal  and  therefore  in  the  end  not  very  im- 
portant wars  of  Timur,  with  what  he  calls  the  great '  anony- 
mous '  campaigns  and  victories  of  the  Mongols  proper 
under  Genghis  Khan  and  in  the  years  immediately  succeed- 
ing his  death. 

"Naturally,  this  difference  in  dryness  makes  an  im- 
mense difference  in  interest.  Thus  I  took  up  De  la  Gorce's 
history  of  the  Second  Empire  because  of  the  allusions  to 
it  in  Walpole  's  history,  which  covers  much  the  same  period ; 
but  Walpole 's  history  was  only  readable  in  the  sense  that 
a  guide  book  or  a  cookery  book  is  readable ;  whereas  I  found 
De  la  Gorce  exceedingly  interesting  and  filled  with  much 
that  was  philosophical  and  much  that  was  picturesque. j  ■ 

On  July  19,  1905,  in  a  letter  to  Henry  Beach  Needham, 
he  dropped  into  this  discussion  of  what  constitutes  great- 
ness and  how  it  is  won : 

"It  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  in  life  there  are  two 
ways  of  achieving  success,  or,  for  the  matter  of  that,  of 
achieving  what  is  commonly  called  greatness.     One  is  to 


REBUKES  TO  RIOTOUS  STRIKERS  AND  LYNCHERS     447 

do  that  which  can  only  be  done  by  the  man  of  exceptional 
and  extraordinary  abilities.  Of  course  this  means  that  only 
one  man  can  do  it,  and  it  is  a  very  rare  kind  of  success  or 
of  greatness.  The  other  is  to  do  that  which  many  men 
could  do,  but  which  as  a  matter  of  fact  none  of  them  actually 
does.  This  is  the  ordinary  kind  of  success  or  kind  of  great- 
ness. Nobody  but  one  of  the  world's  rare  geniuses  could 
have  written  the  Gettysburg  speech,  or  the  Second  Inau- 
gural, or  met  as  Lincoln  met  the  awful  crises  of  the  Civil 
War.  But  most  of  us  can  do  the  ordinary  things,  which, 
however,  most  of  us  do  not  do.  It  is  of  course  unnecessary 
to  say  that  I  have  never  won  a  success  of  any  kind  that  did 
not  come  within  this  second  category.  Any  one  that  chose 
could  lead  the  kind  of  life  I  have  led,  and  any  one  who  has 
led  that  life  could  if  he  chose — and  by  *  choosing,'  I  of 
course  mean  choosing  to  exercise  the  requisite  industry, 
judgment  and  foresight,  none  of  a  very  marked  type — have 
raised  my  regiment  or  served  in  positions  analogous  to 
those  of  Police  Commissioner,  Civil  Service  Commissioner, 
and  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy." 

A  few  days  before  the  Portsmouth  Peace  Conference 
reached  its  agreement,  in  August,  1905,  after  sending  off  a 
sheaf  of  cable  and  other  messages  to  Tokio,  St.  Petersburg, 
and  Berlin,  which  forced  the  envoys  to  get  together,  Roose- 
velt, on  August  25,  took  a  trip  in  a  submarine,  a  species  of 
voyage  which  was  regarded  at  the  time  as  especially  per- 
ilous. Indeed,  when  it  was  announced  in  advance  that  he 
was  going,  there  were  protests  in  the  newspapers  against 
it  on  the  ground  that  as  the  head  of  the  nation  his  life  was 
not  his  own  and  he  had  no  right  to  risk  it.  Among  the 
protests  was  one  from  "Mr.  Dooley"  which  closed  with  the 
memorable  sentence :  "If  you  must  go,  Mr.  President,  take 
Fairbanks  with  you!"  He  was  not  deterred  but  took  the 
trip,  was  under  water  seventy  minutes,  and  while  there 
made  a  thorough  examination  of  the  vessel  and  mastered 
its  method  of  operation.  Writing  to  his  friend,  Count  von 
Sternburg,  he  expressed  views  about  the  future  of  the  sub- 


448  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

marine  which,  addressed  to  a  German,  afford  curious  read- 
ing after  the  uses  to  which  the  submarine  was  put  by  Ger- 
mans in  the  European  war : 

"I  myself  am  both  amused  and  interested  as  to  what  you 
say  about  the  interest  excited  about  my  trip  in  the  Plunger. 
I  went  down  in  it  chiefly  because  I  did  not  like  to  have  the 
officers  and  enlisted  men  think  I  wanted  them  to  try  things 
I  was  reluctant  to  try  myself.  I  believe  a  good  deal  can  be 
done  with  these  submarines,  although  there  is  always  the 
danger  of  people  getting  carried  away  with  the  idea  and 
thinking  that  they  can  be  of  more  use  than  they  possibly 
could  be." 

The  President  made  two  efforts  in  1905  to  induce  Joseph 
H.  Choate  to  reenter  the  diplomatic  service.  He  asked  him 
to  go  as  the  American  representative  to  the  Algeciras  Con- 
vention. Mr.  Choate  at  first  accepted  and  subsequently 
withdrew  his  acceptance.  He  next  offered  him  the  position 
of  American  Minister  to  Japan,  and  this  also  Mr.  Choate 
declined.  Writing  about  tfie  latter  position  after  the  close 
of  the  Portsmouth  Conference,  the  President  gave  this  in- 
teresting statement  of  his  personal  views  as  to  services 
which  an  ex-President  may  perform: 

"I  found  that  the  Japanese  were  very  anxious  we  should 
send  the  very  highest  man  possible  to  Tokio  as  Minister, 
and  they  say  that  if  that  is  done  they  will  shortly  make 
their  representative  here  an  Ambassador.  They  evidently 
feel  that  if  Choate  were  sent  there  it  would  be  appreciated 
as  an  international  compliment.  I  do  not  know  whether 
Choate  would  go  or  not.  If  I  were  in  his  place  I  should  be 
delighted  to  go.  I  have  always  felt  that  John  Quincy 
Adams  rendered  a  real  service  when  he  went  to  Congress 
after  being  President ;  that  is,  he  showed  more  regard  for 
the  work  to  be  done  than  for  the  titular  position.  In  the 
same  way  Choate  could  well  afford  to  spend  what  would 
be  a  delightful  couple  of  years  in  Tokio  for  the  sake  of 
the  good  that  his  going  would  do." 


CHAPTER  XXXV 
BUILDER  OF  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

That  the  United  States  and  the  world  owe  the  existence 
of  the  Panama  Canal  entirely  to  President  Roosevelt,  is  a 
fact  which  cannot  be  disputed.  Every  step  in  the  progress 
of  that  enterprise,  from  the  time  of  taking  possession  of 
the  Isthmus  without  an  instant's  delay  when  the  Panama 
revolution  offered  the  opportunity,  till  the  water-way  be- 
tween the  two  oceans  was  thrown  open  to  the  shipping 
of  the  world,  was  due  to  his  personal  action  in  the  early 
stages  of  the  work.  It  was  carried  to  completion  under 
Presidents  Taft  and  Wilson  on  the  lines  that  he  had  estab- 
lished so  firmly  that  they  could  not  be  changed.  As  he  said 
later,  with  a  frank  boldness  that  astounded  his  critics: 
*  *  Yes,  I  took  the  Isthmus,  and  I  am  in  a  wholly  unrepentant 
frame  of  mind  in  reference  thereto.  The  ethical  conception 
upon  which  I  acted  was  that  I  did  not  intend  that  Uncle  Sam 
should  be  held  up  while  he  was  doing  a  great  work  for 
himself  and  all  mankind."  Having  made  up  his  mind  on 
the  subject,  he  did  not  stop  to  ask  if  the  course  would 
win  popular  approval,  or  even  if  Congress  would  approve. 
If  he  had  waited  for  Congress  to  act,  the  opportunity  would 
have  passed. 

When  it  came  to  the  question  of  how  to  build  the  canal, 
he  acted  with  equal  promptness  and  courage.  Here  again 
he  kept  himself  steadily  ahead  of  Congress,  as  the  record 
will  show.  In  fact,  Congress,  building  better  than  it  knew 
or  suspected,  left  the  direction  of  the  work  virtually  in  his 
hands.  In  the  law  which  it  passed,  authorizing  him  to  build 
the  canal  through  a  commission  of  seven  members,  Con- 
gress decreed  that  the  commission  should  "in  all  matters 
be  subject  to  the  direction  and  control  of  the  President." 

449^ 


450  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Its  failure  to  pass  laws  giving  more  specific  definition  to 
the  powers  which  he  should  exercise,  gave  the  President 
the  very  opportunity  that  he  desired,  and  which  he  was 
prompt  to  seize  when  the  necessity  for  doing  so  arose. 
He  invariably  gave  Congress  the  opportunity  to  act  before 
acting  on  his  own  account.  Thus,  when  the  first  commis- 
sion of  seven  members,  appointed  on  February  29,  1904, 
though  composed  of  excellent,  even  superior  material, 
proved  ineffective  because  of  failure  to  act  as  an  executive 
unit,  he  asked  Congress  to  reduce  the  number  of  members 
from  seven  to  three.  "When  Congress  declined  to  do  this, 
he  secured  the  desired  result  in  another  way.  He  requested 
and  obtained  the  resignations  of  the  members  of  the  com- 
mission, appointed  a  new  commission  in  its  stead,  and 
placed  the  direction  of  its  affairs  in  an  Executive  Commit- 
tee of  three  members,  making  the  other  four  members 
merely  an  advisory  engineering  body.  This  arrangement, 
while  producing  excellent  results  for  a  time,  in  turn  broke 
down  on  the  question  of  divided  responsibility,  leading  to  a 
temporary  resumption  of  seven-headed  administration. 
The  President  then  reached  the  final  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem by  conferring  upon  a  single  person  absolute  powers  of 
direction  and  control.  The  manner  in  which  this  was  done 
will  be  described  presently. 

When  Congress  placed  the  work  of  construction  in  the 
President's  hands,  it  left  open  the  question  of  the  type  of 
canal  to  be  built,  whether  it  should  be  a  lock  canal  above 
sea-level,  or  one  at  sea-level.  To  obtain  light  on  this  ques- 
tion the  President  invited  eminent  engineers  of  the  United 
States  and  Europe  to  form  an  international  board  of  in- 
quiry and  advise  him  of  their  conclusions.  Such  a  body, 
composed  of  eight  Americans  and  five  Europeans,  assem- 
bled in  September,  1905,  and  in  January  following  made 
two  reports,  one  signed  by  eight  members,  five  Europeans 
and  three  Americans,  in  favor  of  a  canal  at  sea-level,  and 
one  signed  by  five  Americans  in  favor  of  a  canal  with  locks 
at  an  elevation  of  85  feet  above  sea-level.  The  President 
referred  the  reports  to  the  Canal  Commission  and  its  Chief 


BUILDER  OP  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  451 

Engineer  in  charge  of  the  work  on  the  Isthmus,  for  con- 
sideration, and  the  Commission  and  its  Chief  Engineer 
agreed  in  favoring  the  lock  canal  plan.  The  Secretary  of 
War  also  favored  it,  and  the  President  transmitted  the  sev- 
eral reports  and  findings  to  Congress  with  a  recommenda- 
tion that  the  lock  canal  plan  be  adopted. 

Of  this  decision  the  President  said  in  a  speech  at  Chicago, 
on  May  10,  1905 :  ' '  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  lock 
canal  at  the  proposed  level  would  cost  only  about  half  as 
much  to  build  and  would  be  built  in  half  the  time,  with 
much  less  risk;  that  for  large  ships  the  transit  would  be 
quicker,  and  that,  taking  into  account  the  interest  saved, 
the  cost  of  maintenance  would  be  less.,, 

The  merits  of  the  two  plans  were  discussed  with  much 
animation  in  the  press  of  the  country,  and  a  debate,  marked 
at  times  by  animosity,  occupied  the  Senate  for  several 
weeks.  Under  firm  pressure  from  the  President,  that  body 
finally  adopted  the  lock  plan  by  a  vote  of  36  to  31.  The 
House,  which  had  been  known  to  be  strongly  in  its  favor 
from  the  outset,  concurred  with  the  Senate  without  a  divi- 
sion. 

My  official  connection  with  canal  work  began  in  Septem- 
ber, 1905,  when  at  the  President's  request  I  was  appointed 
Secretary  of  the  Commission,  a  position  which  I  held  for 
nine  years,  extending  not  only  through  President  Koose- 
velt's  term  of  office  but  through  the  entire  period  of  canal 
construction.  The  first  two  years  of  my  service  were  spent 
in  Washington  and  the  remaining  seven  on  the  Isthmus. 
What  I  write  on  the  subject  is  based,  therefore,  on  the 
intimate  personal  knowledge  which  I  acquired  through  my 
official  duties  and  relations. 

In  order  to  acquaint  himself  thoroughly  with  the  work 
in  all  its  phases,  President  Koosevelt,  accompanied  by  his 
wife,  paid  a  visit  to  the  Isthmus  in  November,  1906.  The 
visit,  which  was  notable  as  being  the  first  instance  in  which 
a  President  of  the  United  States  had  passed  outside  its 
territory  while  holding  office,  attracted  wide  attention  and 
comment.    He  went  on  a  war  vessel  of  the  Navy,  and  spent 


452  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

three  days  on  the  Isthmus  devoting  nearly  every  daylight 
hour  to  the  inspection  of  canal  work  from  one  ocean  to 
the  other.  The  work  at  the  time  was  in  charge  of  the 
second  Commission,  and  had  been  under  full  headway  from 
the  moment  that  Congress  had  adopted  the  lock  plan.  In 
his  inspection  the  President  was  accompanied  by  the  Chief 
Engineer,  the  Chairman  and  Secretary  of  the  Commis- 
sion, the  Chief  Sanitary  Officer  and  other  canal  officials. 
Every  portion  of  the  work,  including  engineering  plans, 
sanitary  arrangements  and  regulations  for  the  civil  gov- 
ernment of  the  Canal  Zone,  was  subjected  to  minute  scru- 
tiny. The  zeal  and  tireless  energy  of  the  President  put 
to  a  severe  strain  the  physical  strength  of  more  than  one  of 
his  companions. 

During  his  visit  a  formal  reception  was  extended  to  him 
by  the  President  of  the  Panama  Republic,  Dr.  Manuel 
Amador,  the  exercises  being  held  on  the  platform  of  the 
cathedral,  fronting  the  central  plaza  of  the  city.  In  re- 
sponse to  an  address  of  welcome  by  President  Amador,  the 
President  assured  him  that  the  republics  of  the  United 
States  and  Panama  were  "joint  trustees  for  all  the  world' ' 
in  doing  the  work  of  building  the  canal,  and  pledged,  on 
behalf  of  the  United  States,  the  heartiest  support  and  treat- 
ment uona  basis  of  a  full  and  complete  and  generous  equal- 
ity between  the  two  republics."  A  notable  passage  of  his 
speech,  considering  the  revolutionary  record  of  Panama — 
of  more  than  fifty  revolutions  in  fifty  years — was  the  fol- 
lowing : 

"The  sole  desire  of  the  United  States  as  regards  the 
Republic  of  Panama  is  to  see  it  increase  in  wealth,  in  num- 
bers, in  importance,  until  it  becomes,  as  I  so  earnestly  hope 
it  will  become,  one  of  the  republics  whose  history  reflects 
honor  upon  the  entire  western  world.  Such  progress  and 
prosperity,  Mr.  President,  can  come  only  through  the  pres- 
ervation of  both  order  and  liberty ;  through  the  observance 
of  those  in  power  of  all  their  rights,  obligations,  and  duties 
to  their  fellow-citizens,  and  through  the  realization  of  those 


BUILDER  OF  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  453 

out  of  power  that  the  insurrectionary  habit,  the  habit  of 
civil  war,  ultimately  means  destruction  to  the  republic." 

The  closing  sentence  of  this  passage  was  delivered  with 
great  force,  the  President  striding  to  the  front  of  the  plat- 
form and  fairly  hurling  it  into  the  faces  of  the  assembled 
crowd  of  Panamanians.  Although  it  was  a  condemnation 
of  what  might  be  called  their  chief  political  industry  for 
half  a  century,  the  Panamanians  greeted  it  with  shouts  of 
approval.  That  the  warning  was  taken  to  heart,  the  subse- 
quent history  of  the  new  republic  conclusively  proves,  for 
no  revolution  or  insurrection  has  disturbed  its  develop- 
ment in  peace  and  prosperity  since  that  day. 

On  the  eve  of  his  departure  from  the  Isthmus,  the  entire 
canal  force  was  assembled  in  a  great  building  covering 
the  largest  wharf  of  the  Canal  Commission  at  Cristobal, 
at  the  Atlantic  entrance  to  the  canal,  in  a  mass  reception 
to  him.  In  a  speech  which  he  made  to  the  assemblage,  the 
President  said  that  to  each  of  the  canal  workers  had  come 
an  opportunity  such  as  was  vouchsafed  to  but  few  in  each 
generation,  adding : 

"I  shall  see  if  it  is  not  possible  to  provide  for  some  little 
memorial,  some  mark,  some  badge,  which'  will  always  dis- 
tinguish the  man  who  for  a  certain  space  of  time  has  done 
his  work  well  on  this  Isthmus,  just  as  the  button  of  the 
Grand  Army  distinguishes  the  man  who  did  his  work  well 
in  the  Civil  War." 

On  his  return  to  Washington  the  President  requested 
Francis  D.  Millet,  the  accomplished  artist  and  charming 
gentleman  who  lost  his  life  in  the  Steamship  Titanic  dis- 
aster in  April,  1912,  to  make  suggestions  in  regard  to  the 
proposed  memorial,  and  he  recommended  a  medal  of  the 
size  of  a  silver  dollar.  The  Isthmian  Canal  Commission 
was  asked  for  suggestions  as  to  design  and  inscriptions, 
and  it  recommended  that  on  one  side  there  should  be  a  me- 
dallion portrait  of  President  Eoosevelt  and  on  the  other 
the  seal  of  the  Canal  Zone.    The  first  part  of  the  recom- 


454  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

mendation  was  adopted  by  Mr.  Millet,  but  the  second  was 
rejected,  and  instead  of  the  seal  there  was  adopted  a  bird's- 
eye  view  of  Culebra  Cut,  in  the  completed  canal,  with  a  ship 
passing  through,  and  the  motto  of  the  seal,  "The  Land 
Divided,  the  World  United, ' '  inscribed  above  it.  The  work 
was  placed  in  charge  of  Victor  D.  Brenner,  an  eminent 
sculptor,  who  modeled  a  medallion  of  President  Roose- 
velt at  personal  sittings  at  Oyster  Bay  in  July,  1908. 

Over  one  hundred  pounds  of  copper,  bronze  and  other 
material  from  abandoned  French  locomotives  and  ma- 
chinery on  the  Isthmus  were  shipped  to  the  United  States 
Mint  in  Philadelphia,  and  from  these  the  medals  were  cast. 
They  were  awarded  to  all  Americans  in  the  Canal  and 
Panama  Railway  employ  who  had  served  two  years  or  more 
on  canal  work.  Each  additional  two  years  of  service  was 
indicated  by  the  attachment  of  a  bar  so  inscribed.  Distri- 
bution of  the  medals,  inscribed  with  the  name  of  the  recip- 
ient and  the  date  of  his  original  employment,  was  begun 
in  September,  1909,  and  over  six  thousand  were  delivered. 
They  were  very  highly  prized  by  their  owners,  and  the 
bestowal  of  them  contributed  materially  to  the  patriotic 
pride  in  their  work  which  was  so  universal  in  the  canal 
force,  and  which  was  the  chief  cause  of  its  remarkable  effi- 
ciency. 

As  recorded  in  a  previous  chapter,  Roosevelt  was  the 
first  President  to  send  a  message  to  Congress  in  print, 
rather  than  in  script  as  had  been  the  invariable  custom. 
He  established  another  precedent  in  a  special  message 
which  he  sent  to  Congress  on  December  17,  1906,  setting 
forth  in  detail  the  results  of  his  visit  to  the  Isthmus.  He 
accompanied  the  text  in  this  instance  with  reproductions 
of  photographs  showing  the  condition  of  the  work  at  va- 
rious points.  This  was  the  first  illustrated  message  ever 
transmitted  to  Congress  and  its  appearance  in  the  Senate 
caused  a  feeling  approaching  consternation  in  that  august 
body,  whose  members  looked  upon  it  as  that  abhorrent 
thing  called  "an  innovation,"  a  breach  of  tradition  amount- 
ing almost  to  treason.    The  House,  on  the  contrary,  hailed 


BUILDER  OF  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  455 

it  with  joy  as  a  public  document  of  high  interest  and  value 
for  circulation  among  the  people,  and  several  editions,  ag- 
gregating many  thousand  copies,  were  ordered  for  the  use 
of  members.  Its  interest  and  attractiveness  were  so  com- 
pelling that  after  a  short  period  of  tremors,  the  Senators 
overcame  their  objections  sufficiently  to  order  for  them- 
selves an  edition  of  ten  thousand  copies.  Another  peculi- 
arity of  the  message  was  that  simplified  spelling  was  used 
in  it  for  the  first  and  only  time  in  such  a  document  in  our 
history. 

The  message  had  a  wide  circulation  both  in  the  United 
States  and  Europe  and  was  of  inestimable  service  in  giving 
a  clear,  specific  and  unassailable  presentation  of  conditions 
on  the  Isthmus  at  a  time  when  opinion  on  the  subject  had 
been  confused  and  misled  by  a  great  flood  of  newspaper 
and  magazine  literature  grossly,  and  often  slanderously, 
misrepresenting  them.  In  fact,  no  great  national  enter- 
prise was  ever  subjected  to  a  more  persistent  assault  than 
was  directed  upon  the  canal  work  during  the  first  few  years 
of  its  progress.  The  assault  was  apparently  so  systematic 
as  to  suggest  that  powerful  influences  of  some  sort  were 
instigating  it.  In  his  special  message  the  President  spoke 
of  two  kinds  of  criticism,  honest  and  malicious,  and  said 
of  the  latter: 

"  Where  the  slanderers  are  of  foreign  origin,  I  have  no 
concern  with  them.  Where  they  are  Americans,  I  feel  for 
them  the  heartiest  contempt  and  indignation;  because,  in 
a  spirit  of  wanton  dishonesty  and  malice,  they  are  trying 
to  interfere  with,  and  hamper  the  execution  of,  the  greatest 
work  of  the  kind  ever  attempted,  and  are  seeking  to  bring 
to  naught  the  efforts  of  their  countrymen  to  put  to  the 
credit  of  America  one  of  the  giant  feats  of  the  ages.  The 
outrageous  accusations  of  these  slanderers  constitute  a 
gross  libel  upon  a  body  of  public  servants  who,  for  trained 
intelligence,  expert  ability,  high  character  and  devotion 
to  duty,  have  never  been  excelled  anywhere.  There  is  not 
a  man  among  them  directing  the  work  on  the  Isthmus  who 
has  obtained  his  position  on  any  other  basis  than  merit 


456  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

alone,  and  not  one  who  has  used  his  position  in  any  way 
for  his  own  personal  or  pecuniary  advantage.' ' 

In  this  message  the  President  renewed  his  request  for 
a  smaller  commission,  saying  that  a  seven-headed  body  was, 
of  course,  a  clumsy  executive  instrument,  and  asking  for  a 
single  commissioner  with  undivided  powers  and  responsi- 
bilities. This  request,  like  the  former  one,  was  not  granted. 
The  President  then  decided  upon  a  further  exercise  of  his 
power  under  the  law,  and  consolidated  the  positions  of 
Chief  Engineer  and  Chairman  of  the  Commission  in  a 
single  person.     Scarcely  had  this  been  done,  when  both 
the  Chairman  and  the  Chief  Engineer  resigned,  and  the 
President  was  fairly  compelled  to  make  a  radical  reorgan- 
ization of  the  Commission.    As  he  said  at  the  time,  he  had 
no  alternative  except  to  turn  it  over  to  the  army.    He  had 
made  two  efforts  to  have  the  canal  constructed  by  civilians, 
but  in  both  instances  the  civilian  who  was  chief  engineer 
had  resigned  when  he  had  become  tired  of  the  job.    It  was 
useless  to  try  to  build  the  canal  with  a  new  chief  engineer 
every  twelve  months,  since  a  permanent,  stable  force  was 
unattainable  under  such  conditions,  and  without  a  perma- 
nent force  satisfactory  results  could  not  be  achieved.    "I 
propose  now, ' '  he  said,  i '  to  put  the  work  in  charge  of  men 
who  will  stay  on  the  job  till  I  get  tired  of  having  them 
there,  or  till  I  say  they  may  abandon  it."    A  new  com- 
mission, composed  mainly  of  army  engineers  and  an  en- 
gineer of  the  navy,  was  appointed  and  assumed  duty  on 
April  1,  1907. 

When  I  became  Secretary  of  the  Commission  in  1905 
it  was  giving  serious  consideration  to  the  question  of  pro- 
viding  means  of  recreation  for  the  Americans  who  com- 
prised the  clerical,  subordinate  engineering,  and  skilled 
mechanical  elements  of  the  working  force  of  the  canal. 
Life  on  the  Isthmus  was  without  relief  or  diversion  of  any 
kind.  There  were  no  reputable  places  of  amusement,  no 
clubs,  libraries  or  reading  rooms.  There  was  a  constant 
dread  of  sickness,  for  the  health  of  the  Canal  Zone  had  not 


BUILDER  OF  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  457 

yet  been  fully  established,  and  with  this  dread  the  loneli- 
ness attending  existence  in  a  land  not  merely  foreign  but 
lacking  in  most  of  the  familiar  comforts  of  modern  civil- 
ization. The  consequence  was  that  after  a  sojourn  of  a  few 
months,  the  American  employees  became  homesick,  discon- 
tented, and  depressed,  lost  interest  in  their  work,  and  re- 
turned to  the  United  States  at  the  earliest  opportunity. 
During  the  first  two  years  the  annual  changes  in  this  part 
of  the  force  amounted  to  90  per  cent.  It  was  clearly  im- 
possible to  hope  for  anything  approximating  a  permanent 
force  and  without  a  permanent  force  efficiency  could  not  be 
secured. 

The  Commission,  working  on  President  Boosevelt's  sug- 
gestion with  the  National  Committee  of  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association,  drew  up  a  plan  for  the  erection, 
furnishing  and  operating,  at  the  Commission's  expense, 
of  recreation  buildings  or  club-houses  in  the  largest  set- 
tlements of  canal  workers.  It  was  estimated  that  each  of 
these  buildings  would  cost  about  $35,000,  fully  furnished, 
and  that  it  would  cost  several  thousand  dollars  a  year  to 
run  them  under  Y.  M.  C.  A.  management.  The  legal  ad- 
viser of  the  Commission  expressed  the  opinion  that  such 
use  of  the  Commission's  appropriations  was  of  doubtful 
legality,  and  that  when  the  bills  came  before  the  Comp- 
troller of  the  Treasury  for  approval  he  might  reject  them. 

I  took  the  matter  to  President  Eoosevelt  and  explained  to 
him  the  imperative  need,  physical  and  moral,  of  the 
buildings  to  the  welfare  of  the  employees  and  the  progress 
of  the  work.  He  took  the  view  that  they  were  as  necessary 
as  were  suitable  living  quarters,  good  food,  sanitation,  and 
other  objects  of  expenditure  for  the  health  and  welfare  of 
the  force,  since  with  a  discontented  and  constantly  chang- 
ing force  the  best  results  could  not  be  secured. 

He  asked  me  why  the  Commission  did  not  go  ahead  at 
once  and  erect  the  buildings.  When  I  informed  him  of  the 
legal  adviser's  opinion,  he  exclaimed:  "You  go  back  and 
tell  that  man  to  keep  his  mouth  shut.  He  is  not  there  to 
find  objections;  let  the  other  fellow  do  that.     I  want  to 


458  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

build  the  canal ;  I  do  not  want  to  be  told  bow  not  to  do  it, 
but  how  to  do  it.  You  tell  the  Commission  to  go  ahead 
and  build  the  club-houses.  Ill  take  the  responsibility.  If 
the  Comptroller  of  the  Treasury  throws  out  the  bills,  I'll 
send  a  special  message  to  Congress,  asking  for  a  special 
appropriation  for  the  purpose.  I  will  see  to  it  that  our 
boys  down  there  are  properly  taken  care  of." 

The  club-houses  were  built,  the  Comptroller  passed  the 
bills  without  question,  and  no  objection  to  the  use  of  the 
money  was  ever  raised  in  any  quarter.  Before  the  canal 
was  completed  there  were  five  of  these  larger  buildings, 
costing  about  $35,000  each  and  about  $7,000  a. year  each 
for  their  operation,  together  with  several  smaller  ones. 
They  were  the  centers  of  social  and  athletic  activities  and 
contributed  immeasurably  to  the  well-being  and  content- 
ment of  the  force,  and,  consequently,  to  the  progress  of  the 
work. 

If  President  Eoosevelt,  hesitating  about  his  authority  in 
the  matter,  had  referred  it  to  Congress  for  action,  it  is 
safe  to  assume  what  the  result  would  have  been.  As  usual 
in  such  cases,  there  would  have  been  a  discussion  lasting 
anywhere  from  six  months  to  a  year,  and,  at  the  end  of  it, 
an  appropriation  of  a  few  thousand  dollars  for  a  single  in- 
adequate building,  possibly  two.  In  the  meantime  the  force 
would  have  continued  to  change  at  the  rate  of  90  per  cent,  a 
year,  the  progress  of  the  work  would  have  been  retarded, 
not  merely  for  a  few  years,  but  for  an  indefinite  period, 
with  possible  failure  as  the  ultimate  outcome.  Eoosevelt 's 
prompt  action  made  it  possible  to  have  several  of  the 
buildings  completed  within  a  year,  so  that  their  beneficial 
influence,  so  vitally  needed,  began  almost  immediately. 

After  the  club-houses  were  put  in  operation,  their  man- 
agers reported  a  growing  demand  for  books  among  the 
members,  and  suggested  the  purchase  of  small  libraries  for 
each  building,  there  being  no  libraries  or  collections  of 
books  for  public  use  anywhere  on  the  Isthmus.  When  this 
suggestion  was  taken  up  for  consideration  by  the  Com- 
mission, the  legal  adviser  again  raised  the  question  of  le- 


BUILDER  OF  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  459 

gality  in  connection  with  such  use  of  the  Government 
money.  Again  I  went  to  President  Roosevelt,  stating  the 
case  to  him,  and  saying  that  through  inquiries  to  publishers 
and  booksellers  I  had  ascertained  that  I  could  purchase 
libraries  of  selected  books,  containing  each  600  volumes, 
for  $500  each.  ' < Why  don't  you  buy  them !"  he  asked.  I 
stated  the  legal  adviser's  opinion,  whereupon  he  reiterated 
with  additional  vigor,  what  he  had  said  on  the  previous 
occasion  about  the  functions  of  the  legal  adviser,  and 
added:  "You  spend  the  money;  buy  the  books,  and  tell  the 
Commission  I  authorize  the  expenditure." 

Again  no  objection  was  made  by  any  one  to  this  expendi- 
ture. The  need  was  a  real  one.  Later,  when  I  was  sta- 
tioned on  the  Isthmus,  I  was  informed  by  many  members 
of  the  force  that  they  had  read  every  one  of  the  books  in 
the  libraries,  and  the  demand  for  more  was  so  insistent 
that  a  small  sum  was  set  apart  each  year  by  the  Commis- 
sion for  the  purchase  of  additional  volumes.  The  benefi- 
cial effects  of  the  presence  of  the  books  for  use  in  idle  hours 
can  scarcely  be  overestimated.  Again,  it  may  be  asked, 
what  would  have  been  the  answer  if  Congress  had,  been 
requested  to  appropriate  this  money? 

On  the  eve  of  sailing  for  permanent  residence  at  Panama 
in  July,  1907,  President  Roosevelt  summoned  me  to  Oyster 
Bay  for  final  suggestions  and  instructions.  He  asked  me, 
as  soon  as  I  became  familiar  with  the  way  matters  were 
going  there,  to  write  to  him  freely  about  them,  telling  him 
what  obstacles,  if  any,  were  hampering  Colonel  Goethals 
and  interfering  with  the  progress  of  the  work.  He  bade  me 
assure  the  Colonel  that  he  should  back  him  up  in*  every- 
thing. After  I. had  been  at  Panama  about  a  month  I  wrote 
to  the  President  a  confidential  letter — one  of  a  series,  in 
fact — in  which  I  told  him  that  there  was  one  very  serious 
obstacle  to  the  highest  attainable  degree  of  progress  and 
that  was  the  seven-headed  Commission — that  the  first  es- 
sential to  the  construction  of  the  canal  in  the  best  manner 
and  in  the  shortest  period  of  time  was  the  placing  of  auto- 
cratic power  in  the  hands  of  one  man — Colonel  Goethals. 


460  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Under  date  of  August  29,  1907,  I  received  a  reply  from 
the  President  in  which  he  said: 

uIam  not  surprised  that  the  Colonel  finds  the  Commis- 
sion a  cumbersome  body.  As  you  know,  my  own  belief  has 
always  been  that  there  should  be  one  commissioner,  and 
with  things  as  they  are  at  present  I  would  have  him  the 
Chief  Engineer  of  the  Commission  and  let  him  appoint  his 
assistants — or  have  me  appoint  them  if  necessary,  though 
my  preference  would  be  to  have  him  do  so." 

Writing  again  on  September  6,  1907,  in  reply  to  another 
letter  of  mine  in  which  I  had  urged  him  to  repeat  the  effort, 
already  made  in  vain  on  former  occasions,  to  get  Congress 
to  amend  the  law  and  reduce  the  size  of  the  Commission, 
the  President  wrote : 

"Evidently  Goethals  is  exactly  the  man  for  the  work. 
How  fortunate  we  have  been  to  get  him !  .  .  .  Whether  we 
get  the  change  of  law  or  not,  he  shall  really  have  all  the 
powers  that  he  would  have  if  he  were  the  Chief  Engineer 
in  sole  charge  of  the  work  with  the  executive  under  him 
and  the  other  engineers  as  an  advisory  board.  Of  course, 
the  wise  thing  for  him  to  do  is,  so  far  as  possible,  to  act 
first  and  then  have  his  acts  confirmed  by  the  Commission. ' ' 

On  receipt  of  this  letter  I  showed  it  to  Colonel  Goethals. 
As  he  finished  reading  it,  he  arose  from  his  chair,  and  with 
his  always  erect  figure  if  possible  more  erect  than  ever, 
he  exclaimed :  ' i  Now  I  have  both  feet  on  the  ground — and 
111  build  the  canal!" 

How  completely  the  President  kept  his  word  will  be 
shown  as  this  narrative  proceeds.  I  will  make  one  other 
extract  from  his  letters  of  that  period  in  order  to  show  how 
unvaryingly  the  President  stood  behind  Colonel  Goethals. 
His  only  question  to  me,  whenever  I  went  to  him  or  wrote 
to  him  asking  for  some  action  on  his  part,  was  invariably : 
"Is  this  what  Goethals  wants?"  If  I  answered  that  it 
was,  nothing  more  was  said  and  the  action  was  taken.  In 
a  letter  under  date  of  September  11,  1907,  the  President 


BUILDER  OF  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  461 

wrote  in  regard  to  an  official  on  the  Isthmus  who  had  been 
the  leader  in  working  up  opposition  to  Colonel  Goethals: 
"He  (naming  him)  has  done  good  work,  and  I  am  sure 
the  Colonel  will  give  him  an  absolutely  fair  chance.  If 
he  does  well  and  acts  in  entire  harmony  with  the  Colonel, 
he  will  stay;  otherwise  he  will  not.  I  shall  back  up  the 
Colonel  on  all  points.,, 

The  official  in  question  was  given  "an  absolutely  fair 
chance"  by  Colonel  Goethals,  but  he  failed  to  improve  it, 
and  he  was  asked  for  his  resignation.  In  announcing  his 
forthcoming  departure,  under  date  of  May  23,  1908,  the 
President  wrote  me  a  letter  which  is  worth  quoting  for 
its  revelation  of  his  attitude  toward  newspaper  assaults: 

"Blank  is  going,  so  that  you  need  not  have  any  anxiety 
on  that  score.  As  for  scandalous  articles  of  the  kind  you 
enclose,  why  of  course  they  will  appear  about  you,  and 
Colonel  Goethals  and  me,  and  everybody  else,  and  I  don't 
care  a  snap  of  my  fingers  about  them. ' ' 

When  in  December,  1907,  Colonel  Goethals  arrived  in 
Washington,  the  President  at  once  fulfilled  his  promise  to 
put  full  power  into  his  hands.  He  told  the  Colonel  to  have 
an  Executive  Order  drawn  up  to  accomplish  that  purpose. 
This  was  done,  but  when  it  was  submitted  to  Secretary 
Taft,  then  at  the  head  of  the  War  Department,  he  said  that 
he  did  not  think  it  was  entirely  in  accordance  with  law,  but 
as  it  had  been  prepared  at  the  President's  direction  he 
advised  Colonel  Goethals  to  take  it  to  the  White  House  and 
see  what  the  President  thought  of  it.  Colonel  Goethals,  in 
his  own  account  of  the  incident,  published  in  Scribner's 
Magazine,  in  May,  1913,  describes  what  took  place  as  fol- 
lows: 

"After  reading  it,  the  President  reached  for  a  pen,  ask- 
ing if  it  was  satisfactory  to  me.  I  replied  affirmatively,  but 
explained  that  Mr.  Taft  thought  that  it  was  not  exactly 
in  accord  with  the  law.  To  this  the  President  replied  that 
he  would  take  his  chances  with  the  law,  adding  that  he 
wanted  the  canal  built." 


i 


462  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

The  Order  was  signed  January  6, 1908,  and  under  its  pro- 
visions Colonel  Goethals  assumed  the  autocratic  powers 
which  he  exercised  without  opposition  till  the  completion 
of  the  work.  In  the  narrative  in  Scribner's  Magazine,  from 
which  I  have  quoted  above,  Colonel  Goethals  spoke  of  the 
effect  of  the  Order : 

"Now  that  the  Canal  is  in  operation,  I  doubt  if  this  re- 
sult could  have  been  accomplished  in  any  other  way  than 
by  a  single  responsible  head.  This  President  Eoosevelt 
realized  the  first  time  I  met  him,  and  I  have  consequently 
felt  that  to  this  Order  and  to  the  support  given  to  me  in 
carrying  it  out  are  due  the  results  that  have  been  attained. ' f 

In  that  view  I  concur  absolutely,  for  I  was  present  on 
the  Isthmus  when  this  and  other  similar  acts,  "backing  up 
the  Colonel  at  all  points,' '  were  performed  by  President 
Eoosevelt  and  I  know  from  personal  observation  that  with- 
out them  the  canal  would  not  have  been  built  in  anything 
like  the  time  in  which  it  was. 

An  incident  which  occurred  immediately  following  the 
election  of  Mr.  Wilson  to  the  Presidency  illustrated  the  su- 
preme value  of  Eoosevelt  *s  support  to  Colonel  Goethals. 
The  old  opposition  forces  in  the  Commission  got  together 
immediately  with  a  new  member  who  had  been  sent  down 
by  Secretary  Bryan,  and  questioned  the  absolute  authority 
which  Colonel  Goethals  had  been  and  was  still  exercising. 
They  asked  him  where  he  got  it,  and  when  he  replied  that 
it  came  from  the  Executive  Order  of  January  6,  1908,  they 
declared  that  he  exceeded  the  powers  conferred  in  that. 
He  admitted  it,  but  added  that  President  Eoosevelt  had  said 
to  him  that  he  gave  him  all  the  powers  that  he  could  in  that 
Order  but  that  if  he  wanted  more  power,  to  exercise  it  and 
he  (Eoosevelt)  would  approve  his  acts.  When  they  charged 
that  such  action  was  illegal,  the  Colonel  called  their  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  all  of  President  Eoosevelt 's  acts  in 
reference  to  the  canal  had  been  approved  by  Congress  and 
President  Wilson  in  the  new  Canal  Act  for  the  operation 
of  the  canal,  and  hence  had  been  made  lawful. 


BUILDER  OF  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  463 

This  was  the  incontestable  fact  in  the  case.  If  Roosevelt 
"took  his  chances' '  with  the  law,  whenever  the  law  seemed 
to  stand  in  the  way  of  progress,  he  won  out  completely  in 
the  end,  vindicating  his  position  that  while  he  could  not 
do  what  the  law  explicitly  forbade  him  to  do,  he  could  do 
whatever  was  essential  to  progress  even  if  the  law  did 
not  explicitly  empower  him  to  do  it. 

Time  was  to  justify  fully  the  wisdom  and  foresight  of  the 
President's  decision  in  favor  of  a  lock  canal,  for  long  be- 
fore the  canal  was  completed  the  serious  difficulties  caused 
by  the  " slides"  in  the  walls  of  the  canal  through  the 
mountain  range,  known  as  the  "Culebra  Cut,"  demon- 
strated conclusively  the  impossibility  of  construction  at  sea 
level.  As  Colonel  Goethals,  under  whose  able  and  inspiring 
leadership  the  work  was  carried  to  completion,  said  at  a 
critical  moment  in  the  task :  * '  There  is  not  money  enough 
in  the  world  to  construct  a  canal  at  sea-level,  and,  if  con- 
structed, it  could  not  be  kept  open." 

That  the  President  was  willing  to  change  the  type  of 
canal,  if  convinced  that  he  had  made  a  mistake,  he  showed 
in  a  letter  that  he  wrote  to  Colonel  Goethals  on  December 
13,  1908,  when  the  advocates  of  a  sea-level  canal  were  mak- 
ing a  concerted  and  vigorous  assault  upon  the  lock  type  by 
declaring  that  the  Gatun  Dam,  which  was  to  hold  back  the 
great  lake  which  was  to  supply  water  for  the  locks,  was 
so  defective  that  it  would  never  hold  water.  "Fake" 
stories  of  many  kinds  were  widely  circulated  in  the  United 
States  in  support  of  the  assertion.  It  was  in  the  midst  of 
this  campaign  of  misrepresentation  that  the  President 
wrote : 

"I  intend  to  send  Mr.  Taft  down  to  the  Isthmus  in  Jan- 
uary, together  with  four  or  five  of  the  best  engineers  in  the 
country,  for  a  last  and  complete  overhauling  of  the  ques- 
tion in  connection  with  the  Gatun  Dam.  General  Davis  and 
several  others  are  convinced  that  the  Gatun  Dam  will  be  a 
failure,  and  all  kinds  of  rumors  come  up  here  about  it,  while 
there  is  an  evident  movement  in  favor  of  a  sea-level  canal. 

1  i  Now,  my  belief  is,  simply  as  a  layman  and  judging  from 


464  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

what  I  have  heard,  that  the  present  plan  is  the  right  plan ; 
that  the  Gatun  Dam  can  be  built  with  entire  safety,  and  that 
the  sea-level  canal  is  not  advisable.  But  I  don't  care  a  rap 
about  consistency  in  the  matter,  and  you  mustn't  either. 
Nobody  must  care  anything  excepting  to  get  the  canal 
built  according  to  the  best  and  safest  plans.  The  issue  is 
altogether  too  big  to  be  complicated  in  any  way  by  any 
point  of  pride  as  to  past  recommendations  by  me  or  by 
any  one  else.  I  want  you  therefore  to  approach  the  subject 
with  an  absolutely  open  mind,  and  to  consult  with  Mr. 
Taft  and  the  engineers  he  will  bring  with  him,  purely  on 
the  basis  of  finding  out  what  the  facts  are  and  what  is  best 
to  be  done.  Will  you  write  me  freely  as  to  your  judgment 
now  and  as  to  the  reasons  for  your  judgment V3 

In  reply  Colonel  Goethals  expressed  implicit  faith  in  the 
plan  of  canal  and  in  the  Gatun  Dam,  an  opinion  which  time 
and  experience  have  amply  confirmed.  He  said  to  me  later 
in  regard  to  the  President's  letter  that  he  had  the  greatest 
admiration  for  it — considered  it  a  supreme  revelation  of 
Eoosevelt's  character. 

The  commission  which  accompanied  Mr.  Taft  on  his  visit 
made  an  exhaustive  examination  of  the  dam  and  of  the 
canal  plan  and  coincided  entirely  in  the  opinion  of  Colonel 
Goethals. 

In  fact,  it  may  be  said  of  his  securing  the  building  of  the 
canal,  as  of  getting  control  of  the  Isthmus,  that  President 
Eoosevelt  "won  off  his  own  bat."  When  Congress  failed 
to  give  him  the  powers  necessary  for  the  effective  construc- 
tion of  the  canal,  he  assumed  those  powers  and  conducted 
the  work  through  Executive  Orders.  When  Congress  de- 
clined his  request  to  reduce  the  size  of  the  Canal  Commis- 
sion and  concentrate  its  authority  in  a  single  head,  he  ac- 
complished his  object  by  issuing  an  Executive  Order  which 
placed  supreme  power  in  the  hands  of  Colonel  Goethals. 
From  time  to  time  his  course  was  denounced  in  Congress 
as  illegal  and  even  unconstitutional,  but  he  went  calmly  and 
steadily  ahead,  and  when  he  had  accomplished  the  build- 


BUILDER  OP  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  465 

ing  of  the  canal,  Congress  passed  an  act  for  its  operation 
and  maintenance  in  which  all  his  acts  were  approved.  In 
this  proceeding  Congress  followed  the  course  of  the  Senate 
in  giving  approval  to  his  "  taking"  of  the  Isthmus  by  ratify- 
ing the  treaty  with  the  Eepublic  of  Panama. 

Theodore  Eoosevelt  "took"  the  Isthmus,  and  he  built  the 
canal  because  he  placed  action  and  progress  above  technical 
construction  of  law  and  was  not  afraid  to  take  chances  with 
it  when  the  end  to  be  attained  could  be  reached  in  no  other 
way.  His  attitude  toward  the  law  and  the  use  of  the  Exec- 
utive power  is  clearly  denned  by  himself  in  this  passage 
from  his  ' Autobiography': 

1 '  The  most  important  factor  in  getting  the  right  spirit  in 
my  Administration,  next  to  the  insistence  upon  courage, 
honesty,  and  a  genuine  democracy  of  desire  to  serve  the 
plain  people,  was  my  insistence  upon  the  theory  that  the 
executive  power  was  limited  only  by  specific  restrictions 
and  prohibitions  appearing  in  the  Constitution  or  imposed 
by  the  Congress  under  its  Constitutional  powers.  My  view 
was  that  every  executive  officer,  and  above  all  every  exec- 
utive officer  in  high  position,  was  a  steward  of  the  people 
bound  actively  and  affirmatively  to  do  all  he  could  for  the 
people,  and  not  to  content  himself  with  the  negative  merit 
of  keeping  his  talents  undamaged  in  a  napkin.  I  decline  to 
adopt  the  view  that  what  was  imperatively  necessary  for 
the  Nation  could  not  be  done  by  the  President  unless  he 
could  find  some  specific  authorization  to  do  it.  My  belief 
was  that  it  was  not  only  his  right  but  his  duty  to  do  any- 
thing that  the  needs  of  the  Nation  demanded  unless  such 
action  was  forbidden  by  the  Constitution  or  by  the  laws. 
Under  this  interpretation  of  executive  power  I  did  and 
caused  to  be  done  many  things  not  previously  done  by  the 
President  and  the  heads  of  the  departments.  I  did  not 
usurp  power,  but  I  did  greatly  broaden  the  use  of  executive 
power.  In  other  words,  I  acted  for  the  public  welfare,  I 
acted  for  the  common  well-being  of  all  our  people,  when- 
ever and  in  whatever  manner  was  necessary,  unless  pre- 
vented by  direct  constitutional  or  legislative  prohibition. 


466  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

I  did  not  care  a  rap  for  the  mere  form  and  show  of  power ; 
I  cared  immensely  for  the  use  that  could  be  made  of  the 
substance." 

His  line  of  action  was,  therefore,  in  regard  to  the  canal, 
the  one  which  he  followed  uniformly  in  the  conduct  of  pub- 
lic affairs — not  to  find  reasons  for  not  doing  it,  but  ways  in 
which  to  do  it — to  seek  for  results  and  get  them.  Also,  not 
to  pick  out  weak  men  for  great  tasks,  but  to  select  the  best 
and  strongest  men  he  could  obtain  and,  when  selected,  to 
back  them  to  the  limit  so  long  as  they  showed  themselves 
equal  to  the  task.  He  found  in  Colonel  Goethals  a  man  of 
his  own  sort,  who  was  not  afraid  to  take  power  and  who 
knew  how  to  exercise  it.  The  two  made  a  noble  team,  and 
they  scored  a  " victory  of  peace' -  that  has  brought  honor 
to  the  American  name  throughout  the  world. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE 

It  is  a  diplomatic  secret  that  President  Roosevelt  is  enti- 
tled to  the  credit  of  arranging  the  important  Algeciras 
Conference  of  1906  and  dictating  the  terms  on  which  war 
between  France  and  Germany,  with  the  possible  involve- 
ment of  England  as  the  ally  of  France,  was  averted^  His 
service  as  peacemaker  in  this  controversy,  rendered  in  re- 
sponse to  the  earnest  and  repeated  appeals  of  the  Kaiser, 
was  equaled  only  by  that  which  at  the  same  time  he  was 
rendering  to  the  world  in  bringing  to  an  end  the  war  be- 
tween Russia  and  Japan.  Secretary  Root  said  of  it  to  me, 
many  years  later,  that  he  considered  it  of  far  greater  im- 
portance to  the  world  than  the  Portsmouth  settlement. 
Happily  a  full  history  of  what  Roosevelt  did  is  extant,  nar- 
rated by  himself.  It  is  in  the  form  of  a  letter,  addressed 
on  April  28,  1906,  to  Whitelaw  Reid,  then  American  Am- 
bassador in  London.  This  letter,  which  bears  the  impress 
of  Roosevelt  in  every  line,  contains  all  the  confidential  cor- 
respondence which  passed  between  him  and  the  German 
and  French  Ambassadors,  with  the  communications  of  their 
governments,  including  messages  of  the  Kaiser.  In  the  end 
the  President  fairly  compelled  the  Kaiser  to  accept  the 
terms  upon  which  the  final  agreement  was  reached  by  the 
Convention.  These  documents  have  never  been  published, 
not  even  in  the  Blue  Book,  as  the  President  says  in  his  let- 
ter. Their  full  text  is  given  here  as  historical  material  of 
the  first  interest  and  value. 

THE  LETTER 

Absolutely  private  and  confidential. 

,,       ,  D   . ,  April  28,  1906. 

My  dear  Reid: 

Now  you  are  about  to  receive  a  quarto-volume  from  me 

467 


468  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

and  I  hope  it  will  not  daunt  yon.  But  there  has  been  so 
much  that  is  amusing  and  interesting,  and  indeed  so  much 
that  has  been  of  importance,  in  the  queer  negotiations 
wherein  I  have  been  the  medium  between  France  and  Ger- 
many during  the  past  year  that  it  is  possibly  worth  your 
while  to  know  of  them  a  little  in  detail. 

On  March  6,  1905,  Sternburg  came  to  me  with  a  message 
from  the  Kaiser  to  ask  me  to  join  with  the  Kaiser  in  in- 
forming the  Sultan  of  Morocco  that  he  ought  to  reform 
his  government,  and  that  if  he  would  do  so  we  would  stand 
behind  him  for  the  open  door  and  would  support  him  in  any 
opposition  he  might  make  to  any  particular  nation  (that  is 
to  France)  which  sought  to  obtain  exclusive  control  of  Mo- 
rocco. On  the  following  day  he  submitted  to  me  a  memo- 
randum to  the  same  effect,  stating  that  the  Emperor  re- 
garded France  and  Spain  as  "  a  political  unity, ' '  who  wished 
to  divide  up  Morocco  between  themselves  and  debar  her 
markets  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  that  if  Spain  should 
occupy  Tangiers  and  France  to  the  Hinterland  they  would 
be  able  to  dominate  the  roads  to  the  Near  and  Far  East. 
I  answered  this  by  stating  that  I  did  not  see  my  way  clear 
to  interfere  in  the  matter,  for  I  did  not  think  that  our  in- 
terests were  sufficiently  great,  but-  expressed  my  friendli- 
ness to  Germany  generally  and  my  expectation  and  belief 
that  her  policy  was  one  for  peace.  I  had  some  further 
interviews  with  Speck,  and  on  April  5th  he  wrote  me  again. 
This  time  he  maintained  that  England  and  France  were 
allies ;  that  he  must  insist  upon  a  conference  of  the  powers 
to  settle  the  fate  of  Morocco.  In  this  memorandum  he  (the 
Emperor)  stated  that  Germany  asked  for  no  gains  in  Mo- 
rocco; she  simply  defended  her  interests  and  stood  for 
equal  rights  to  all  nations  there.  He  then  added,  in  Speck's 
words : 

"Besides  this  she  is  bound  to  think  of  her  national  dig- 
nity. This  makes  it  necessary  for  her  to  point  out  to 
France  that  her  national  interests  cannot  be  disposed  of 
without  asking  her  for  her  consent  and  cooperation.  Since 
35  years  Germany  has  been  obliged  to  keep  an  armed  de- 


SECRET  HISTORY  OP  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE     469 

fensive  towards  France.  As  soon  as  France  discovers  that 
Germany  meekly  submits  to  her  bullying,  we  feel  sure  that 
she  will  become  more  aggressive  in  other  quarters  and  we 
do  not  consider  a  demand  for  a  revision  of  the  Treaty 
of  Frankfort  to  be  far  off." 

The  Emperor  evidently  felt  safe  in  the  position  of  defi- 
ance to  France,  which  he  had  already  adopted,  because  as 
he  (Speck)  said :  "According  to  the  information  which  the 
Emperor  has  received  he  feels  sure  that  England's  aid 
to  France  in  the  matter  will  not  go  beyond  a  '  diplomatic 
support.'  This,  he  hopes,  will  keep  France  isolated,  and, 
with  or  without  a  conference,  he  expects  that  the  status  quo 
in  Morocco  can  be  peacefully  improved  and,  above  all,  the 
rights  of  all  foreigners  safeguarded  there. ' '  On  April  13th 
Speck  wrote  me  again,  saying  that  the  Italian  Government 
had  informed  the  Emperor  of  their  sympathy  with  his  po- 
sition, and  of  their  conviction  that  France  would  ' '  only  con- 
tinue her  aggressive  policy  in  Morocco,  aimed  at  all  non- 
French  interests',  if  she  feels  sure  that  England  will  stand 
by  her  and  eventually  show  herself  ready  to  back  her  up 
by  force  of  arms."  To  this  the  Emperor  added  that  he  be- 
lieved that  the  attitude  of  England  would  depend  upon  the 
attitude  of  the  United  States,  and  asked  us  to  tell  England 
that  we  thought  there  should  be  a  conference. 

On  April  25th  he  wrote  me  again,  saying  that  the  Em- 
peror would  be  most  grateful  to  me  if  I  would  intimate  to 
England  that  I  would  like  to  see  her  and  Germany  in  har- 
mony in  their  dealings  with  Morocco.  On  May  13th  he 
sent  me  another  memorandum,  insisting  that  there  must 
be  a  general  conference  and  complaining  of  England  for 
opposing  this  conference,  and  stating  that  the  latter  would 
only  drop  her  opposition  if  I  would  give  her  a  hint  to  do  so. 
The  Emperor  also  in  this  memorandum  stated,  with  a  dis- 
tinct note  of  self-righteousness,  that  he  had  refused  invi- 
tations from  France  to  come  to  an  agreement  with  her 
alone,  because  he  was  disinterestedly  championing  the 
cause  of  the  world  at  large.    He  then  used  these  words: 


470  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

"The  Emperor  states  that  his  policy  is  absolutely  clear  and 
simple.  In  spite  of  special  advantages  offered  to  him  he 
stands  by  the  treaty  rights  granted  to  all.  Only  if  he 
should  discover  that  he  should  receive  no  support  from  the 
interested  treaty  powers  in  connection  with  the  open  door 
and  the  conference,  he  would  be  forced  to  think  of  Ger- 
many alone.  Only  then — and  not  before — he  would  have  to 
choose  between  the  possibility  of  a  war  with  France  and  the 
examining  of  those  conditions  which  France  may  have  to 
propose,  so  as  to  avoid  a  war." 

During  the  rest  of  this  letter  Speck  describes  the  Em- 
peror 's  indignation  with  the  King  of  England  and  with  the 
British  Government,  and  expresses  the  Emperor's  belief 
that  France,  England  and  Eussia  possibly  with  the  coop- 
eration of  Japan  were  aiming  at  the  partition  of  China. 
This  last  supposition  seemed  to  me  mere  lunacy,  if  it  was 
put  forward  with  sincerity.  The  comic  feature  of  the 
memorandum,  considering  the  closeness  of  Germany's  rela- 
tions with  Eussia  at  the  outset  of  the  Eusso-Japanese  war, 
was  that  the  Emperor  complained  that  France,  ignoring 
all  the  laws  of  nations,  had  offered  the  Eussian  fleet  a  safe 
retreat  in  the  harbors  of  Indo-China,  and  had  provided  that 
fleet  with  means  to  prepare  its  attack,  which  action  might 
result  in  a  turn  of  the  war  in  favor  of  Eussia.  The  Em- 
peror added: 

' '  On  the  other  hand  the  Emperor  feels  that  England  will 
drop  this  or  any  other  plan,  if  she  finds  out  in  time  that  it 
would  be  opposed  by  America.  The  violent  renewal  of  the 
anti-German  movement  in  England  seems  to  be  caused  by 
Germany's  attempt  to  balk  any  coalition  of  Powers  directed 
against  China  after  the  conclusion  of  peace. ' ' 

On  May  29th  the  Emperor  stated  that  both  England  and 
France  had  offered  to  give  Germany  a  sphere  of  interest  in 
Morocco  if  she  would  accept  it  and  let  the  question  remain 
quiet,  but  that  the  Emperor  had  refused,  stating  that  he 
was  for  the  maintenance  "of  the  status  quo  and  for  the 
open  door  and  for  equal  treatment  of  all  nations  whose 


SECRET  HISTORY  OF  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE      471 

rights  were  established  by  treaties/ '  (It  will  be  seen  later 
on  how  comically  the  Emperor  tried  to  go  back  on  this  prop- 
osition.) Two  days  later  Speck  sent  me  another  memo- 
randum from  the  Emperor,  stating  that  he  regarded  the 
Morocco  question  not  as  an  isolated  question,  but  as  one 
which  might  develop  into  a  starting  point  for  a  new  group- 
ing of  the  Powers.  He  again,  in  this  memorandum,  threat- 
ened a  war  with  France,  using  the  following  language :  ' i  If 
England  is  successful  in  causing  the  refusal  of  France  to 
join  in  a  conference  to  settle  the  Morocco  question,  Ger- 
many will  have  to  choose  between  war  with  France  or  be- 
tween an  understanding  with  France  with  regard  to  Mo- 
rocco, which  repeatedly  has  been  sought  for  by  France. 
Such  an  understanding,  the  Emperor  believes,  is  to  form 
the  basis  of  a  new  grouping  of  European  powers  to  which 
he  is  strongly  opposed,  being  most  anxious  to  maintain  in 
the  future  his  attitude,  especially  with  regard  to  the  Far 
East,  as  clearly  explained  to  you.  Everything  he  thinks 
depends  on  the  attitude  you  may  consider  fit  to  take  to- 
wards a  conference  of  the  treaty  powers  to  settle  the  Mo- 
rocco question.  England  is  the  only  power  which  opposes 
such  a  conference,  though  it  seems  sure  she  will  drop  her 
objections  in  case  you  should  participate  in  the  confer- 
ence.' '  The  day  after  I  received  yet  another  letter  from 
Speck,  showing  that  the  United  States  had  signed  the  con- 
vention of  Madrid  with  reference  to  Morocco,  in  1880. 

Meanwhile  my  own  attitude  can  be  best  gathered  by  the 
following  two  letters,  which  I  sent  while  on  my  bear  hunt, 
one  to  Taft,  who  was  then  acting  as  Secretary  of  State  in 
Hay's  absence,  and  the  other  to  Speck: 

Confidential. 

Dictated  by  the  President  in  camp,  East  Divide  Creek, 
Colorado. 

Glenwood  Springs,  Colo., 
April  20,  1905. 

Dear  Will: 

I  think  you  are  keeping  the  lid  on  in  great  shape !    Ap- 


472  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

parently  the  Santo  Domingo  pot  is  not  bubbling  much  at 
present,  but  we  have  troubles  enough  elsewhere. 

The  Kaiser's  pipe-dream  this  week  takes  the  form  of 
Morocco.  Speck  has  written  me  an  urgent  appeal  to  sound 
the  British  Government  and  find  out  whether  they  intend  to 
back  up  France  in  gobbling  Morocco.  I  have  told  him  to 
see  you  and  lay  the  matter  definitely  before  you.  There 
was  one  part  of  the  Kaiser's  letter  which  he  asked  me  to 
treat  as  strictly  confidential,  and  I  do  not  know  whether 
Speck  will  tell  you  about  it  or  not.  ...  I  do  not  feel  that  as 
a  Government  we  should  interfere  in  the  Morocco  matter. 
We  have  other  fish  to  fry  and  we  have  no  real  interest  in 
Morocco.  I  do  not  care  to  take  sides  between  France  and 
Germany  in  the  matter. 

At  the  same  time  if  I  can  find  out  what  Germany  wants 
I  shall  be  glad  to  oblige  her  if  possible,  and  I  am  sincerely 
anxious  to  bring  about  a  better  state  of  feeling  between 
England  and  Germany.  Each  nation  is  working  itself  up 
to  a  condition  of  desperate  hatred  of  the  other;  each  from 
sheer  fear  of  the  other.  The  Kaiser  is  dead  sure  that  Eng- 
land intends  to  attack  him.  The  English  Government  and 
a  large  share  of  the  English  people  are  equally  sure  that 
Germany  intends  to  attack  England.  Now,  in  my  view  this 
action  of  Germany  in  embroiling  herself  with  France  over 
Morocco  is  proof  positive  that  she  has  not  the  slightest 
intention  of  attacking  England.  I  am  very  clear  in  my  be- 
lief that  England  utterly  over-estimates,  as  well  as  mis- 
estimates, Germany's  singleness  of  purpose,  by  attributing 
to  the  German  Foreign  Office  the  kind  of  power  of  con- 
tinuity of  aim  which  it  had  from  '64  to  71.  I  do  not  wish 
to  suggest  anything  whatever  as  to  England's  attitude  in 
Morocco,  but  if  we  can  find  out  that  attitude  with  propriety 
and  inform  the  Kaiser  of  it,  I  shall  be  glad  to  do  so.  But 
I  have  to  leave  a  large  discretion  in  your  hands  .in  this 
matter,  for  if  we  find  that  it  will  make  the  English  sus- 
picious— that  is,  will  make  them  think  we  are  acting  as 
decoy  ducks  for  Germany — why,  we  shall  have  to  drop  the 
business.    Fortunately,  you  and  I  play  the  diplomatic  game 


SECRET  HISTORY  OF  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE     473 

exactly  alike,  and  I  should  advise  your  being  absolutely 
frank  with  both  Speck  and  the  British  people  along  the 
lines  I  have  indicated,  unless  you  have  counter  suggestions 
to  make.  Remember,  however,  that  both  parties  are  very 
suspicious.  You  remember  the  King's  message  to  me 
through  Harry  White  and  his  earnest  warning  to  me  that 
I  should  remember  that  England  was  our  real  friend  and 
that  Germany  was  only  a  make-believe  friend.  In  just  the 
same  way  the  Germans  are  always  insisting  that  England 
is  really  on  the  point  of  entering  into  a  general  coalition 
which  would  practically  be  inimical  to  us — an  act  which 
apart  from  moral  considerations  I  regard  the  British  Gov- 
ernment as  altogether  too  flabby  to  venture  upon. 
****** 

Ever  yours, 

Theodore  Eoosevelt, 
L. 
P.  S.  If  you  deem  it  wise  to  see  the  British  Ambassador 
at  all,  do  be  careful  to  explain  to  him  that  we  are  taking 
sides  neither  with  France  nor  Germany,  but  that  we  would 
like  to  convey  Germany's  request  for  information  to  Eng- 
land, and  that  we  are  acting  in  thus  conveying  it  simply 
from  a  desire  to  make  things  as  comfortable  between  Eng- 
land and  Germany  as  possible.  .  .  . 

Dictated  by  the  President  in  camp,  East  Divide  Creek, 
Colorado. 

Personal. 

Glenwood  Springs,  Colorado, 
April  20,  1905. 
Dear  Speck: 

Your  letter  containing  the  Emperor's  communication 
about  Morocco  is  the  first  thing  that  has  made  me  wish  I 
was  not  off  on  a  hunt,  for  I  hardly  know  how  to  arrange  out 
here  what  the  Emperor  requests.  As  I  told  you  before, 
I  dislike  taking  a  position  in  any  matter  like  this  unless 
I  fully  intend  to  back  it  up,  and  our  interests  in  Morocco 
are  not  sufficiently  great  to  make  me  feel  justified  in  en- 


474  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

tangling  our  Government  in  the  matter.  You  do  not  have 
to  be  told  by  me  that  I  am  already  working  in  the  most  cor- 
dial agreement  with  the  Emperor  about  China  and  the 
Japanese-Kussian  war,  while  I  have  matters  of  my  own  in 
Santo  Domingo,  Venezuela  and  Panama  to  which  I  must 
give  attention  and  from  which  I  do  not  feel  it  right  to  be 
diverted ;  but  I  have  told  Taf t  substantially  what  you  have 
said  in  your  letter  excepting  the  portion  about  the  com- 
munication from  the  Italian  Government  which  the  Em- 
peror requested  me  to  treat  as  purely  confidential.  Will 
you  take  this  letter  at  once  to  Secretary  Taft,  show  it  to 
him,  and  tell  him  exactly  how  far  you  want  us  to  go  in 
sounding  the  British  Government.  Meanwhile  I  shall  write 
him,  quoting  the  proposal  of  the  Emperor  as  to  our  sound- 
ing the  British  Government  and  shall  suggest  his  finding 
out  from  Sir  Mortimer  what  the  British  Government's 
views  in  the  matter  are.  I  do  not  think  I  should  go  any 
further  than  this  at  present.  I  am  sorry  I  am  not  in  Wash- 
ington, for  I  should  at  once  see  the  British  Ambassador 
myself  and  let  you  know  just  how  things  stood. 

Thank  Admiral  von  Tirpitz  for  the  very  interesting 
memorandum  of  the  Navy. 

#  #  #  #  #  # 

Sincerely  yours, 

Theodore  Roosevelt, 
Per  W.  L.  Jr. 
Baron  H.  Sternburg, 
German  Ambassador, 

Washington,  D.  C. 

At  the  end  of  May  I  came  back  to  Washington,  and  found 
Jusserand  and  Speck  both  greatly  concerned  lest  there 
should  be  a  war  between  France  and  Germany.  Both  of 
them  were  sincerely  anxious  to  avert  such  a  possibility, 
and  each  thought  that  his  own  Government  ought  to  make 
concessions  to  avoid  the  war.  Speck,  I  firmly  believe,  did 
not  approve  of  the  action  his  Government  was  taking,  but 


SECRET  HISTORY  OF  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE     475 

of  course  was  obliged  loyally  to  back  up  its  position.  Jus- 
serand,  on  the  other  hand,  sympathized  absolutely  with  the 
general  French  indignation  with  Germany,  but  felt  that 
it  was  better  to  yield  so  far  as  the  conference  was  con- 
cerned, if  it  could  be  done  honorably,  rather  than  have  a 
war. 

I  saw  Sir  Mortimer  on  the  matter,  but  could  get  very  little 
out  of  him.  He  was  bitter  about  Germany,  and  so  far  as 
he  represented  the  British  Government  it  would  appear 
that  they  were  anxious  to  see  Germany  humiliated  by 
France's  refusal  to  enter  a  conference,  and  that  they  were 
quite  willing  to  face  the  possibility  of  war  under  such  cir-/ 
cumstances.  I  did  not  think  this  showed  much  valor  on 
their  part,  although  from  their  point  of  view  it  was  saga- 
cious, as  of  course  in  such  a  war,  where  the  British  and 
French  fleets  would  be  united,  the  German  fleet  could  have 
done  absolutely  nothing;  while  on  land,  where  Germany 
was  so  powerful,  it  would  be  France  alone  that  would  stand, 
and  would  have  to  stand,  the  brunt  of  the  battle.  I  desired 
to  do  anything  I  legitimately  could  for  France;  because  I 
like  France,  and  I  thought  her  in  this  instance  to  be  in  the 
right;  but  I  did  not  intend  to  take  any  position  which  I 
would  not  be  willing  at  all  costs  to  maintain. 

On  June  5th  you  telegraphed  from  London  that  Lans- 
downe  had  asked  for  an  indication  of  my  views  on  the 
Morocco  situation,  and  stated  that  he  regarded  the  pro- 
posal of  joint  action  of  the  powers  represented  in  Morocco 
as  unfortunate,  and  as  possibly  planned  to  embarrass 
France.  About  the  same  time  White  cabled  from  Rome 
that  the  Italian  Government  evidently  feared  the  confer- 
ence was  inevitable  unless  France  was  able  otherwise  to 
pacify  Germany's  susceptibilities,  but  that  the  British  Am- 
bassador felt  sure  that  there  would  be  no  conference. 

I  suppose  I  need  hardly  say  that  the  English,  French  and 
Italian  representatives  all  strenuously  denied  the  state- 
ments as  to  the  propositions  which  Germany  said  their 
nations  had  made  to  her  as  regards  her  sphere  of  interest 
in  Morocco,  etc.    I  did  not  regard  the  various  matters  in 


476  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

which  there  was  this  contradiction  as  important;  partly 
because  I  had  not  at  any  time  credited  the  three  powers 
named  with  having  made  the  several  propositions  they 
were  alleged  by  the  German  Government  to  have  made. 

On  June  11th,  the  Kaiser,  through  Speck,  sent  me  an- 
other memorandum,  running  as  follows : 

"June  11,  1905. 
' '  Memorandum —  ( Morocco ) 

"Mr.  Eouvier  (who  has  shown  himself  distinctly  friendly 
to  Germany  and  has  been  opposing  Mr.  Delcasse)  has  in- 
directly informed  the  German  Charge  d' Affaires  in  Paris 
that  England  has  made  a  formal  offer  to  France  to  enter1 
into  an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance  with  England  which 
would  be  directed  against  Germany.  At  present  the  lead- 
ing statesmen  of  France  are  opposed  to  such  an  alliance, 
because  the  majority  of  the  members  of  the  French  Gov- 
ernment still  hope  to  come  to  a  satisfactory  agreement 
with  Germany.  But  it  was  emphasized,  the  time  had  ar- 
rived for  Germany  to  make  up  her  mind  with  regard  to 
Morocco,  otherwise  France  would  be  forced  to  place  her- 
self in  closer  touch  with  England. 

"Indirectly  Germany  has  been  given  to  understand  that 
the  French  Government  is  desirous  of  giving  her  a  portion 
of  Morocco  under  the  name  of  a  ' sphere  of  interest,'  France 
apportioning  the  greater  part  of  Morocco  to  herself.  Such 
an  offer  Germany  now  can  not  accept,  as  it  was  through 
the  council  of  Germany  that  the  Sultan  of  Morocco  placed 
himself  on  the  ground  of  the  conference  of  Madrid.  Hence 
Germany  is  pledged  by  honor  to  stand  by  the  Sultan. 
'Here,'  says  the  Emperor,  4s  a  curious  case:— we  may  be 
forced  into  war  not  because  we  have  not  been  grabbing 
after  people's  land,  but  because  we  refuse  to  take  it.' 

"My  people  are  sure  that  England  would  now  back 
France  by  force  of  arms  in  a  war  against  Germany,  not  on 
account  of  Morocco,  but  on  account  of  Germany's  policy 
in  the  Far  East.  The  combined  naval  forces  of  England 
and  France  would  undoubtedly  smash  the  German  navy 
and  give  England,  France,  Japan  and  Russia  a  more  free 


SECRET  HISTORY  OF  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE     477 

hand  in  the  Far  East;  and  Eussia  might  try  to  cede  a  por- 
tion of  China  to  Japan  as  a  war  indemnity,  instead  of  part- 
ing with  the  island  of  Saghalien.  The  previous  destruction 
of  the  German  navy  undoubtedly  would  be  welcomed  by 
these  powers. 

"As  regards  a  conference  to  be  held  in  Morocco,  the 
British  Government  has  asked  for  time  to  consider  the 
question.  The  Emperor  feels  sure  that  if  you  could  give 
a  hint  now  in  London  and  in  Paris  that,  all  things  put  to- 
gether, you  would  consider  a  conference  as  the  most  satis- 
factory means  to  bring  the  Morocco  question  to  a  peaceful 
solution,  you  would  render  the  peace  of  the  world  another 
great  service,  without  encountering  any  risk.  In  case  you 
should  not  feel  inclined  to  take  this  step  the  Emperor  be- 
lieves that  your  influence  could  prevent  England  from  join- 
ing a  Franco-German  war,  started  by  the  aggressive  policy 
of  France  in  Morocco. 

"As  to  the  present  attitude  in  France  towards  the  Mo- 
rocco question  a  marked  change  is  noticeable  since  the  re- 
tirement of  Mr.  Delcasse.  Voices  are  now  heard  which 
consider  a  conference  not  only  as  the  most  legal,  but  also 
as  the  safest  way  to  clear  a  situation  which  has  been  cre- 
ated by  the  reckless  statesmanship  of  Mr.  Delcasse.' ' 

It  really  did  look  as  if  there  might  be  a  war,  and  I  felt  in 
honor  bound  to  try  to  prevent  the  war  if  I  could,  in  the 
first  place,  because  I  should  have  felt  such  a  war  to  be  a 
real  calamity  to  civilization;  and  in  the  next  place,  as  I 
was  already  trying  to  bring  about  peace  between  Russia 
and  Japan,  I  felt  that  a  new  conflict  might  result  in  what 
would  literally  be  a  world-conflagration;  and  finally,  for 
the  sake  of  France.  Accordingly,  I  took  active  hold  of  the 
matter  with  both  Speck  and  Jusserand,  and  after  a  series 
of  communications  with  the  French  Government,  through 
Jusserand,  got  things  temporarily  straightened  up.  Jus- 
serand repeated  to  his  government  substantially  just  what 
I  said.  I  told  him  that  as  chief  of  state  I  could  not  let 
America  do  anything  quixotic,  but  that  I  had  a  real  senti- 


478  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

ment  for  France;  that  I  would  not  advise  her  to  do  any- 
thing humiliating  or  disgraceful ;  but  that  it  was  eminently- 
wise  to  avoid  a  war  if  it  could  be  done  by  adopting  a  course 
which  would  save  the  Emperor  's  self-esteem ;  that  for  such 
purpose  it  was  wise  to  help  him  save  his  face.  I  urged 
upon  the  French  Government,  in  the  first  place,  the  great 
danger  of  war  to  them,  and  the  fact  that  British  assistance 
could  avail  them  very,  very  little  in  the  event  of  such  a 
war,  because  France  would  be  in  danger  of  invasion  by 
land ;  and  in  the  next  place,  I  pointed  out  that  if  there  were 
a  conference  of  the  Powers  France  would  have  every  rea- 
son to  believe  that  the  conference  would  not  sanction  any 
unjust  attack  by  Germany  upon  French  interests,  and  that 
if  all  the  Powers,  or  practically  all  the  Powers,  in  the  con- 
ference took  an  attitude  favorable  to  France  on  such  a 
point  it  would  make  it  well-nigh  impossible  for  Germany 
to  assail  her.  I  explained  that  I  would  not  accept  the  invi- 
tation of  the  conference  unless  France  was  willing,  and  that 
if  I  went  in  I  would  treat  both  sides  with  absolute  justice, 
and  would,  if  necessary,  take  very  strong  grounds  against 
any  attitude  of  Germany  which  seemed  to  me  unjust  and 
unfair. 

At  last,  the  French  Government  informed  me  through 
Jusserand  that  it  would  agree  to  the  conference.  At  this 
time  I  was  having  numerous  interviews  with  both  Jus- 
serand and  Speck.  With  Speck  I  was  on  close  terms ;  with 
Jusserand,  who  is  one  of  the  best  men  I  have  ever  met,  and 
whose  country  was  in  the  right  on  this  issue,  I  was  on  even 
closer  terms.  On  the  23d  of  June  he  received  from  the 
French  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  a  despatch  running  in 
part  as  follows : 

[Original  in  French] 

"During  his  recent  conversations  with  you,  President 
Roosevelt  came  to  the  conclusion  that  however  unjust  it 
might  be  on  the  part  of  Germany  to  declare  war  under  the 
present  circumstances,  it  was  nevertheless  possible,  and 
that  it  should  be  avoided  by  the  use  of  conciliation,  and 


SECRET  HISTORY  OP  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE     479 

that  among  the  concessions  which  we  might  make  a  con- 
ference would  without  doubt  be  the  least  undesirable. 

"When  communicating  to  the  President  our  reply  to  the 
German  note,  be  good  enough  to  tell  him  that  his  ideas  and 
advice  inspired  it.  At  first  we  thought  that  it  would  suf- 
fice to  contradict  the  false  statements  which  had  been  pub- 
lished regarding  our  action  in  Morocco  and  to  show  that 
such  action  menaced  no  interests.  We  have  gone  farther 
and  shown  ourselves  ready  to  accept,  owing  to  necessity," 
the  idea  of  a  conference,  in  spite  of  serious  reasons  we  had 
to  entertain  objections  to  such  a  project. 

"But  nothing  has  so  far  occurred  to  prove  that  even  by 
a  conference  an  agreement  can  be  reached.  Up  to  the 
present  moment  it  is  impossible  to  determine  with  certainty 
the  immediate  aim  of  Germany.  The  German  Ambassador 
assures  us  that  so  far  as  Germany  is  concerned  there  is  in 
all  this  affair  only  a  question  of  form  and  of  etiquette,  that 
it  is  only  to  test  the  right  of  the  signatory  powers  to  the 
Convention  of  Madrid,  that  a  temporary  regime  of  very 
short  duration  would  suffice  to  establish  such  right,  and 
that  then  France  could  take  up  again  the  realization  of 
her  program.  But  in  thus  circumscribing  the  range  of 
German  action,  Prince  Radolin  fails  to  make  in  the  name  of 
his  Government  any  proposition  save  that  of  a  conference. 
The  rest,  he  says,  is  merely  a  deduction,  which  he  himself 
makes  from  the  nature  of  things,  and  he  avoids  making 
known  the  attitude  which  the  German  Government  will  take 
at  the  conference.  At  the  same  time  the  Emperor  takes 
steps  to  inform  us  in  Paris  that  all  the  forces  of  Germany 
are  behind  the  Sultan  of  Morocco,  and  he  uses  the  most 
menacing  language  towards  us  at  Washington,  at  Rome 
and  at  Madrid. 

"Mr.  Roosevelt  can  avert  the  danger.  Tell  him  that  the 
exceptional  authority  which  attaches  to  his  counsel,  not 
only  because  of  his  office,  but  also  because  of  his  character, 
his  sense  of  right  and  justice,  and  his  clear  perception  of 
what  are  the  highest  interests,  qualify  him  in  supreme 


480  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

degree  to  intervene  in  favor  of  the  maintenance  of  peace. 
The  insistence  with  which  the  Emperor  has  appealed  to 
him,  has  left  the  way  open  for  the  President  to  take  the 
initiative  that  we  expect  from  his  friendship. ' ' 

On  the  25th  of  June  Jusserand  sent  a  despatch  to  the 
French  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  running  in  full  as 
follows : 

[Original  in  French] 

"I  talked  with  President  Roosevelt  to-night  regarding 
the  reasons  for  urgent  intervention  on  his  part  in  order 
to  avoid  the  break  with  which  Germany  would  seem  to  de- 
sire to  menace  us.  In  order  to  bring  him  into  touch  with 
the  situation,  I  used  the  data  contained  in  your  two  tele- 
grams. 

"My  appeals  were  most  favorably  received.  The  Presi- 
dent declared  to  me  that  he  would  have  this  evening  a  very 
earnest  conversation  with  Baron  Sternburg,  during  which 
he  would  insist,  in  the  first  place,  upon  what  the  Emperor 
owes  to  himself,  and  also  upon  his  solicitude  for  his  fame 
in  history,  for  no  one  would  understand,  or  pardon  wars 
entered  into  for  frivolous  reasons.  He  will  emphasize  the 
very  real  successes  achieved  by  German  diplomacy,  and 
also  the  fact  of  our  adhering  to  his  idea  of  a  conference, 
under  conditions  regarding  the  details  of  which  it  is  im- 
possible not  to  come  to  an  understanding.  He  will,  on  the 
other  hand,  allude  to  the  risks  to  be  run,  citing  the  opinion 
of  French  experts  on  the  condition  of  the  French  army,  and 
saying  that  it  is  not  used  by  me  simply  to  make  an  impres- 
sion, but  it  is  really  what  they  think  of  the  army  and  that 
a  German  victory  is  by  no  means  assured.  He  will  men- 
tion finally  the  support  which  without  doubt  would  not  fail 
us  and  which  would  be  very  formidable  for  Germany.  'I 
would  like  to  be  sure  that  my  words  will  bear  fruit,'  Mr. 
Roosevelt  added,  'but  unfortunately  I  am  not;  however,  in 
any  event  you  can  be  sure  that  I  will  be  as  energetic  as 
possible  in  favor  of  an  amicable  understanding  and  that 


SECRET  HISTORY  OF  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE     481 

I  shall  neglect  nothing  which  appears  to  me  as  being  con- 
ducive to  such  an  end. ' 

"I  informed  the  President  of  the  sentiments  which  Your 
Excellency  instructed  me  to  express  to  him.  He  did  not 
desire  to  let  me  finish,  saying  that  what  he  was  doing  was 
only  too  natural  to  warrant  any  thanks.  I  added  that  the 
telegram  which  I  had  received  from  the  President  of  the 
Council  expressed  much  gratitude,  but  not  the  least  sur- 
prise. '  There, '  said  the  President,  *  is  the  real  compliment 
which  gratifies  me.'  " 

On  June  18th,  Speck  wrote  to  me,  saying  that  the  Em- 
peror greatly  appreciated  the  change  which  was  noticed  in 
the  policy  of  France  since  the  action  I  had  taken  as  regards 
the  Morocco  question,  adding,  "Your  diplomatic  activity 
with  regard  to  France,  the  Emperor  says,  has  been  the 
greatest  blessing  to  the  peace  of  the  world."  I  wrote  to 
Speck  the  following  three  letters,  all  of  which  I  showed  to 
Jusserand  before  I  sent  them,  as  I  did  not  wish  there  to  be 
any  suspicion  of  double  dealing  on  my  part ;  and  Jusserand 
is  a  man  of  such  excellent  judgment,  so  sound  and  cool- 
headed,  and  of  so  high  a  standard  of  personal  and  profes- 
sional honor  that  I  could  trust  him  completely.  Indeed, 
it  was  only  because  both  Jusserand  and  Sternburg  were 
such  excellent  men,  that  I  was  enabled  to  do  anything  at 
all  in  so  difficult  and  delicate  a  matter.  I  could  only  have 
acted  with  men  I  was  sure  of.  With  such  a  tricky  creature 
as  the  Eussian  Cassini,  for  instance,  I  could  have  done  ab- 
solutely nothing;  and  little  or  nothing  with  amiable  Sir 
Mortimer. 

My  three  letters  were  as  follows : 

Personal. 

White  House, 

Washington,  June  20,  1905. 

Dear  Speck: 

Pray  thank  His  Majesty  and  say  that  if  I  have  been  of 
any  use  in  keeping  the  peace  I  am  of  course  more  than  glad. 


482  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

I  shall  be  in  Massachusetts  for  the  next  two  days,  but  will 
see  you  Friday  or  Saturday. 

Sincerely  yours, 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 
Baron  H.  Sternburg, 

The  German  Ambassador, 

Deer  Park,  Maryland. 


White  House, 

Washington,  June  23,  1905. 

My  dear  Mr.  Ambassador: 

I  hope  to  see  you  at  nine  Sunday  evening.  Meanwhile, 
pray  communicate  to  His  Majesty  that  in  accordance  with 
the  suggestion  I  made  to  Ambassador  Jusserand  in  pur- 
suance of  the  letter  you  sent  me,  the  French  Government 
informs  me  unofficially  through  the  Ambassador  that  it  has 
ceased  its  opposition  to  a  conference  of  the  powers  on 
Morocco.  It  seems  as  a  matter  of  course  that  a  program 
of  the  conference  would  be  needed  in  advance  in  accordance 
with  the  usual  custom  in  such  cases.  I  suggest  that  that  be 
arranged  between  Germany  and  France. 

Let  me  congratulate  the  Emperor  most  warmly  on  his 
diplomatic  success  in  securing  the  assent  of  the  French 
Government  to  the  holding  of  this  conference.  I  had  not 
believed  that  the  Emperor  would  be  able  to  secure  this 
assent  and  to  bring  about  this  conference,  from  which  un- 
doubtedly a  peaceful  solution  of  all  the  troubles  will  come. 
I  need  not  say  to  you  that  I  consider  such  peaceful  solution 
as  vitally  necessary  to  the  welfare  of  the  world  at  this  time, 
and  in  view  of  its  having  been  secured  by  the  Emperor's 
success  in  obtaining  this  conference,  I  wish  again  to  ex- 
press my  hearty  congratulation.  It  is  a  diplomatic  triumph 
of  the  first  magnitude. 

Faithfully  yours, 

Theodore  Eoosevelt. 
Baron  H.  Sternburg, 

The  German  Ambassador. 


SECRET  HISTORY  OP  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE     483 

White  House, 

Washington,  June  25,  1905. 
My  dear  Mr.  Ambassador: 

I  have  received  from  M.  Jusserand  the  following  extract 
from  a  telegram  sent  to  him  by  M.  Kouvier : 

"You  reported  to  me  your  conversation  with  President 
Roosevelt,  who  asked  you  to  inform  us  that,  according  to 
his  views,  much  prudence  should  be  used  in  present  cir- 
cumstances, and  that  we  ought  to  consider  the  idea  of  a 
conference  as  a  concession  we  might  make.  ...  Be  so  good 
as  to  tell  the  President  that  his  reflections  and  advice  have 
received  from  us  due  consideration  and  have  caused  us  to 
take  the  resolution  we  have  just  adopted.  We  had  first 
thought  that,  in  order  to  remove  the  erroneous  impressions 
held  about  our  action  in  Morocco,  it  would  be  enough  to 
show  that  it  threatens  no  interests  whatsoever.  But  now 
we  have  gone  further,  and  have  declared  that  we  are  ready 
to  accept  a  conference,  in  spite  of  the  serious  reasons  we 
had  to  entertain  objections  against  such  a  project." 

I  shall  ask,  Mr.  Ambassador,  that  in  forwarding  this  in- 
formation to  His  Majesty  you  explain  that  it  is  of  course 
confidential. 

I  need  hardly  tell  you  how  glad  I  was  to  secure  this  in- 
formation from  the  French  Ambassador.  As  you  know, 
I  was  at  first  extremely  reluctant  to  do  anything  in  the 
matter  which  might  savor  of  officious  interference  on  my 
part;  and  I  finally  determined  to  present  the  case  to  the 
French  Government  only  because  I  wished  to  do  anything 
I  properly  could  do  which  the  Emperor  asked,  and  of  course 
also  because  I  felt  the  extreme  importance  of  doing  any- 
thing possible  to  maintain  the  peace  of  the  world.  As  you 
know,  I  made  up  my  mind  to  speak  to  France  rather  than 
to  England,  because  it  seemed  to  me  that  it  would  be  use- 
less to  speak  to  England ;  for  I  felt  that  if  a  war  were  to 
break  out,  whatever  might  happen  to  France,  England 
would  profit  immensely,  while  Germany  would  lose  her 
colonies  and  perhaps  her  fleet.  Such  being  the  case,  I  did 
not  feel  that  anything  I  might  say  would  carry  any  weight 


484  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

with  England,  and  instead  I  made  a  very  earnest  request 
of  France  that  she  should  do  as  the  Emperor  desired  and 
agree  to  hold  the  conference.  The  French  Government 
have  now  done  just  what  at  His  Majesty's  request  I  urged 
should  be  done. 

Now  in  turn  I  most  earnestly  and  with  all  respect  urge 
that  His  Majesty  show  himself  satisfied  and  accept  this 
yielding  to  his  wishes  by  France.  I  trust  that  the  Emperor 
understands  that  I  would  not  for  any  consideration  advise 
him  to  do  anything  that  would  be  against  the  interest  or 
the  honor  either  of  himself  or  of  his  people,  any  more  than 
I  would  counsel  such  an  action  as  regards  my  own  country ; 
and  I  say  conscientiously  that  I  am  advising  just  the  con- 
duct that  I  would  myself  take  under  like  circumstances; 
and  I  venture  to  give  the  advice  at  all  only  because,  as  I 
took  the  action  I  did  on  the  Emperor's  request,  it  seems  but 
right  that  in  reporting  the  effect  of  this  action  I  should' 
give  my  own  views  thereon.  I  say  with  all  possible  em- 
phasis that  I  regard  this  yielding  by  France,  this  conces- 
sion by  her  which  she  had  said  she  could  not  make  and 
which  she  now  has  made,  as  representing  a  genuine  triumph 
for  the  Emperor 's  diplomacy ;  so  that  if  the  result  is  now 
accepted  it  will  be  not  merely  honorable  for  Germany  but 
a  triumph.  You  know  that  I  am  not  merely  a  sincere  ad- 
mirer and  well-wisher  of  Germany,  but  also  of  His  Majesty. 
I  feel  that  he  stands  as  the  leader  among  the  sovereigns 
of  to-day  who  have  their  faces  set  toward  the  future,  and, 
that  it  is  not  only  of  the  utmost  importance  for  his  own 
people  but  of  the  utmost  importance  for  all  mankind  that 
his  power  and  leadership  for  good  should  be  unimpaired. 
I  feel  that  now,  having  obtained  what  he  asks,  it  would  be 
most  unfortunate  even  to  seem  to  raise  questions  about 
minor  details,  for  if  under  such  circumstances  the  dreadful 
calamity  of  war  should  happen,  I  fear  that  his  high  and 
honorable  fame  might  be  clouded.  He  has  won  a  great 
triumph;  he  has  obtained  what  his  opponents  in  England 
and  France  said  he  never  would  obtain,  and  what  I  myself 
did  not  believe  he  could  obtain.    The  result  is  a  striking 


SECRET  HISTORY  OF  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE     485 

tribute  to  him  personally  no  less  than  to  his  nation,  and  I 
earnestly  hope  that  he  can  see  his  way  clear  to  accept 
it  as  the  triumph  it  is. 
With  high  regard, 

Sincerely  yours, 

Theodore  Koosevelt. 
Baron  H.  Sternburg, 
v     German  Ambassador. 

There  was,  however,  much  higgling  as  to  exactly  what 
should  be  discussed  at  the  conference ;  and  both  Jusserand 
and  Speck  came  to  me  to  say  they  were  still  on  the  verge 
of  seeing  the  negotiations  broken  off.  Finally  I  made  a 
pencil  memorandum  as  follows:  "The  two  Governments 
consent  to  go  to  the  conference  with  no  program,  and  to 
discuss  there  all  questions  in  regard  to  Morocco,  save  of 
course  where  either  is  in  honor  bound  by  a  previous  agree- 
ment with  another  power.' '  I  gave  a  copy  of  this  memo- 
randum to  Jusserand  and  the  memorandum  itself  to  Speck, 
and  after  they  had  transmitted  it  to  their  respective  gov- 
ernments, I  received  the  assent  of  both  governments  to  the 
proposition.  I  explained  to  both  that  I  did  not  care  to  ap- 
pear in  the  matter,  and  that  no  publicity  whatever  would 
be  given  by  me  or  by  any  of  our  representatives  to  what 
I  had  done,  and  I  thought  it  far  better  that  it  should  take 
the  shape  of  an  agreement  freely  entered  into  by  them- 
selves. You  may  remember  that  not  a  hint  of  any  kind  got 
out  throughout  the  whole  of  last  summer  as  to  my  taking 
any  part  in  this  Morocco  business. 

Jusserand  forwarded  my  memorandum  in  a  despatch  to 
his  home  government,  on  June  28th,  which  ran  in  part  as 
follows : 

[Original  in  French] 

"I  called  to  mind  the  grave  reasons  which  we  have  for 
discarding  all  idea  of  a  conference  without  previously  hav- 
>  ing  drawn  up  a  program,  or  at  least  without  an  under- 
standing, indicating  that  which  we  might  have  reason  to 
expect  and  guaranteeing  in  particular  that  solemn  inter- 


486  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

national  undertakings,  which  have  for  a  long  time  been 
public  property,  should  not  be  brought  into  question.  We 
could  not  be  asked  to  deny  our  signature. 

"With  a  sovereign  of  the  temperament  of  William  II, 
who  has  just  given,  by  the  very  documents  which  he  has 
furnished  to  the  President,  such  disquieting  proofs  of  his 
lack  of  moderation  and  even  of  exactness,  we  are  more 
particularly  inclined  to  a  course  of  prudence  than  with 
another. 

"Following  these  remarks  the  President  took  a  piece  of 
paper  and  endeavored  to  find  some  formula,  which  would 
be  acceptable  to  the  two  countries  and  which  would  at  the 
same  time  respect  the  pride  of  William  II  and  our  rights. 
The  text  of  this  formula  is  given  below,  which  formula, 
however,  could  be  slightly  modified  before  being  sent,  but 
in  which  the  general  sense  will  certainly  remain  the  same. 

"The  President  in  no  wise  contends  that  this  is  a  per- 
fect and  unalterable  formula,  but  he  hopes  that  it  perhaps 
may  offer  the  basis  of  an  understanding  and  therefore  he 
had  it  submitted  to  the  Kaiser  by  Baron  Sternburg  on  the 
afternoon  of  Sunday.  He  is  certain  that  the  scope  of  such 
an  understanding  would  be  to  eliminate  from  discussion 
the  advantages  of  which  we  have  assured  ourselves  with 
various  foreign  nations,  for  we  have  not  obtained  them 
except  in  consideration  of  making  corresponding  conces- 
sions to  their  profit,  which  must  remain  irrevocable  and 
which  we  are  in  honor  bound  to  live  up  to.  The  acceptance 
therefore  of  a  formula  of  this  nature  would  be,  in  short, 
the  realization  of  the  program  desired  by  us." 

On  June  28th  I  received  the  following  letter  from  Speck : 

Deer  Park,  Md., 
June  28,  1905. 
Dear  Mr.  President: 

I  have  just  received  a  telegram  from  Berlin  which  ex- 
presses highest  satisfaction  and  gratitude  with  regard  to 
the  latest  step  you  undertook  in  the  interest  of  the  Morocco 
conference. 


SECRET  HISTORY  OF  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE     487 

The  telegram  repeats  a  wire  from  the  German  Ambas- 
sador at  Paris,  who  says  that  Eouvier  is  having  a  most 
difficult  time.  Delcasse's  followers  are  trying  hard  to  force 
him  to  accept  Delcasse's  colonial  program,  and  England  is 
making  a  frantic  effort  to  prevent  the  acceptance  of  the 
invitation  to  the  conference  by  the  council  of  ministers, 
which  meets  to-day.  The  Ambassador  expresses  the  belief 
that  Rouvier's  backing  will  be  strong  enough  to  pull  him 
through.  The  Emperor  has  requested  me  to  tell  you  that 
in  case  during  the  coming  conference  differences  of  opinion 
should  arise  between  France  and  Germany,  he,  in  every 
case,  will  be  ready  to  back  up  the  decision  which  you  should 
consider  to  be  the  most  fair  and  the  most  practical. 

In  doing  this  he  wants  to  prove  that  the  assistance  which 
you  have  rendered  to  Germany  has  been  rendered  in  the 
interest  of  peace  alone,  and  without  any  selfish  motives. 

Believe  me,  Mr.  President, 

Yours  most  sincerely, 

Sternbubg. 

To  the  President  of  the 
United  States  of  America, 

Sagamore  Hill. 


CHAPTEE  XXXVII 

SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE- 
CONCLUDED 

It  was  a  couple  of  days  after  this  that  I  received  from 
both  governments  the  information  that  they  had  agreed  on 
substantially  the  plan  outlined  in  my  memorandum. 

On  July  11th  I  received  a  letter  from  Jusserand,  running 
in  part  as  follows : 

"I  leave  greatly  comforted  by  the  news  concerning 
Morocco.  The  agreement  arrived  at  is  in  substance  the 
one  we  had  considered  and  the  acceptation  of  which  you 
did  so  very  much  to  secure.  Letters  just  received  by  me 
from  Paris  show  that  your  beneficent  influence  at  this  grave 
juncture  is  deeply  and  gratefully  felt.  They  confirm  also 
what  I  guessed  was  the  case,  that  is,  that  there  was  a  point 
where  more  yielding  would  have  been  impossible;  every- 
body in  France  felt  it,  and  people  braced  up  silently  in 
view  of  possible  great  events." 

A  fortnight  afterwards  the  Kaiser  got  uneasy  again, 
and  for  some  time  insisted  upon  the  conference  being  held 
in  Morocco,  and  upon  Kevoil  not  being  sent  by  France  as 
a  delegate.  Again  I  had  to  do  some  cabling  to  both  the 
French  and  German  Governments,  but  finally  the  Kaiser's 
objections  were  removed.  I  had  urged  Jusserand  not  to 
let  his  people  boast  or  be  disagreeable  and  try  to  humiliate 
the  Kaiser  in  connection  with  the  conference,  because  the 
important  point  was  for  them  to  get  the  kernel  of  the  nut, 
and  they  did  not  have  to  consider  the  shell.  On  August 
9th  Jusserand  wrote  me,  expressing  the  thanks  of  his  Gov- 
ernment for  what  I  had  done ;  the  German  Foreign  Office 
thanked  me  by  cable. 

After  this,  trouble  ceased  as  far  as  I  was  concerned, 

488 


SECRET  HISTORY  OF  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE     489 

until  the  Conference  met  at  Algeciras.  Soon  after  the  Con- 
ference opened  I  began  to  have  a  succession  of  visits  from 
Speck  and  from  Jusserand.  Jusserand  generally  gave  me 
his  messages  verbally.  Speck  submitted  them  in  writing. 
Loyal  though  Speck  was  to  his  Government,  both  Boot  and 
I  became  convinced  that  down  in  his  heart  the  honest,  brave 
little  gentleman  did  not  really  believe  Germany  was  acting 
as  she  should  act.  The  attitude  of  France,  as  represented 
by  the  French  representatives  at  Algeciras,  seemed  to  be 
more  reasonable;  but  I  was  entirely  sure  of  France  only 
when  I  could  act  directly  through  Jusserand,  who  rang  true 
under  any  and  all  circumstances.  .  .  . 

Germany  sought  to  impress  us  with  the  fact  that  all  the 
other  Powers  but  England  were  in  her  favor.  We  heard, 
however,  both  from  Eussia  and  Italy  that  they  thought 
the  German  position  was  wrong,  and  were  anxious  that  we 
should  do  something  to  prevent  Germany  from  obtain- 
ing a  sphere  of  influence  in  Morocco.  We  became  convinced 
that  Austria  was  a  mere  cat's-paw  for  Germany,  and  that 
Germany  was  aiming  in  effect  at  the  partition  of  Morocco, 
which  was  the  very  reverse  of  what  she  was  claiming  to 
desire.  She  first  endeavored  to  secure  a  port  for  herself, 
and  then  a  separate  port,  nominally  for  Holland  or  Switzer- 
land, which  we  were  convinced  would,  with  the  adjacent 
Hinterland,  become  in  effect  German.  The  French  said 
they  would  not  yield  on  these  points,  and,  as  you  know,  it 
looked  as  if  the  Conference  would  come  to  nothing,  and  that 
there  would  then  be  the  possibility  of  trouble  between 
France  and  Germany.  Our  view  was  that  the  interests  of 
France  and  Spain  in  Morocco  were  far  greater  than  those 
of  other  powers.  Finally  we  took  the  matter  up  by  corre- 
spondence with  Germany,  as  follows,  Jusserand  being  kept 
informed  of  what  we  were  doing: 

No.  333. 

Department  op  State, 

Washington,  February  19,  1906. 
Excellency: 

The  President  has  been  keeping  in  mind  the  suggestion 


490  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

of  your  memorandum  of  January  29th  that  the  United 
States  should  propose  "to  entrust  the  Sultan  of  Morocco 
with  the  organization  of  the  police  forces  within  his  do- 
mains and  to  allow  him  certain  funds,  and  to  establish  an 
international  control  with  regard  to  the  management  of 
these  funds,  and  the  carrying  out  of  the  whole  plan." 

Our  advices  from  Algeciras  indicate  that  the  time  has 
been  reached  when  such  a  proposal  should  be  made,  if  at 
all,  and  also  that  to  be  effective  it  should  now  be  somewhat 
more  specific  in  regard  to  the  nature  of  the  international 
control. 

If  it  is  acceptable  to  Germany,  the  President  will  make 
the  proposal  suggested  with  the  following  details,  which 
should,  perhaps,  be  called  modifications,  but  which  he  does 
not  consider  to  interfere  with  the  accomplishment  of  the 
end  Germany  had  in  view  in  securing  the  conference.  He 
will  propose : 

1.  That  the  organization  and  maintenance  of  police 
forces  in  all  the  ports  be  entrusted  to  the  Sultan,  the  men 
and  officers  to  be  Moors. 

2.  That  the  money  to  maintain  the  force  be  furnished 
by  the  proposed  international  bank,  the  stock  of  which  shall 
be  allotted  to  all  the  powers  in  equal  shares  (except  for 
some  small  preference  claimed  by  France,  which  he  con- 
siders immaterial). 

3.  That  duties  of  instruction,  discipline,  pay  and  assist- 
ing in  management  and  control  be  entrusted  to  French  and 
Spanish  officers  and  non-commissioned  officers,  to  be  ap- 
pointed by  the  Sultan  on  presentation  of  names  by  their 
Legations. 

That  the  senior  French  and  Spanish  instructing  officers 
report  annually  to  the  government  of  Morocco,  and  to  the 
government  of  Italy,  the  Mediterranean  Power,  which  shall 
have  the  right  of  inspection  and  verification,  and  to  demand 
further  reports  in  behalf  of  and  for  the  information  of  the 
Powers.  The  expense  of  such  inspection,  etc.,  etc.,  to  be 
deemed  a  part  of  the  cost  of  police  maintenance. 

4.  That  full  assurances  be  given  by  France  and  Spain, 


SECRET  HISTORY  OF  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE      491 

and  made  obligatory  upon  all  their  officers  who  shall  be 
appointed  by  the  Sultan,  for  the  open  door,  both  as  to  trade, 
equal  treatment  and  opportunity  in  competition  for  public 
works  and  concessions. 

The  foregoing  draft  has  been  carefully  framed  with  ref- 
erence to  the  existing  situation  at  Algeciras,  so  as  to  give 
it  a  form  which  would  make  concessions  from  the  French 
position  as  easy  as  possible,  and  the  President  thinks  that 
it  conserves  the  principle  of  the  open  door  without  unduly 
recognizing  the  claims  which  rest  upon  proximity  and  pre- 
ponderance of  trade  interests.  He  thinks  it  is  fair,  and 
earnestly  hopes  that  it  may  receive  the  Emperor's  ap- 
proval. 

Accept,  Excellency,  the  renewed  assurances  of  my  high- 
est consideration. 

Elihu  Root. 

His  Excellency, 

Baron  Speck  von  Sternburg, 
Etc.,  etc.,  etc. 


Imperial  German  Embassy, 

Washington,  February  22,  1906. 
Dear  Mr.  President: 

The  Emperor  has  requested  me  to  express  to  you  his 
hearty  thanks  for  your  offer  to  mediate  in  the  Morocco 
question.  He  especially  appreciates  that  you  will  only  act 
as  mediator  in  agreement  with  him. 

He  fully  agrees  with  your  views  on  points  1,  2  and  4  and 
considers  it  a  sound  idea  that  the  funds  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  police  forces  should  be  paid  out  of  the  State 
Bank  of  Morocco,  to  be  founded,  and  that  all  Powers  can 
equally  participate  in  this  bank.  The  question  of  granting 
to  France  a  slight  preference  he  thinks  might  be  discussed. 

According  to  point  3,  only  French  and  Spanish  officers 
and  non-commissioned  officers  are  to  be  selected.  This  pro- 
posal covers  in  the  main  the  last  French  proposal. 

Though  the  Emperor  felt  unable  to  accept  this  proposal 
it  has  been  subjected  to  another  close  examination  as  soon 


492  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

as  your  offer  of  mediation  had  been  received.  But  this  has 
not  been  able  to  convince  him  that  a  settlement  on  such 
lines  could  be  considered  in  harmony  with  the  principle 
accepted  by  the  conference  that  all  Powers  are  to  receive 
equal  treatment.  ^ 

According  to  the  proposal  the ,  French  and  Spanish  offi- 
cers shall  not  be  freely  chosen  by,  th^  Sultan,  but  be  named 
by  their  respective  legations,  l^ey  are  to  be  placed  in 
charge  of  the  drill,  the  discipline  and  the  pay  of  the  police 
forces  of  Morocco,  and  they  are  also  to  participate  in  their 
administration  and  control.  This  would  place  the  police 
forces  entirely  into  their  hands,  and  the  police  organization 
would  be  tantamount  to  a  Franco-Spanish  double  mandate 
and  mean  a  monopoly  of  these  two  countries,  which  would 
heavily  curtail  the  political  and  the  economic  positions  of 
the  other  nations. 

The  Emperor  is  of  the  opinion  that  the  Sultan  should  be 
permitted  a  free  choice  among  the  other  nations.  This 
would  certainly  not  exclude  such  modifications  which  should 
be  considered  as  practical.  For  instance,  it  might  be  pos- 
sible to  allow  the  Sultan  to  choose  the  officers  among  those 
nations  which  are  participating  in  the  new  State  bank, 
hence  have  greater  interests  in  Morocco.  It  could  be  fur- 
ther stipulated,  in  case  France  should  fear  that  under  the 
present  conditions  the  Sultan  might  favor  German  officers, 
that  at  least  four  different  nationalities  should  be  taken 
into  consideration  in  an  equal  manner.  Ultimately,  so  as 
to  acknowledge  the  special  rights  of  France  in  Morocco, 
the  Sultan  might  place  the  police  control  in  Tangiers,  and 
perhaps  in  some  other  port,  entirely  in  the  hands  of  French 
officers.  In  all  the  other  ports  officers  of  various  nations 
would  cooperate. 

As  to  the  uniformity  of  the  whole  of  the  police  force  it 
would  not  seem  difficult  to  establish  a  uniformity  in  organ- 
ization and  armament  by  issuing  regulations. 

In  case  it  should  be  possible  to  widen  your  proposal  for 
mediation  according  to  the  above  suggestions,  Germany 
would  gladly  negotiate  on  this  new  basis  and  the  Emperor 


SECRET  HISTORY  OF  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE     493 

would  be  highly  gratified  if  you  should  be  pleased  to  fur- 
ther offer  your  mediation. 
Believe  me,  Mr.  President, 

Yours  most  sincerely, 

Steenburg. 
To  the  President  of  the 
United  States  of  America, 

Washington,  D.  C. 


No.  342.  (L) 


March  7,  1906. 


Excellency: 

May  I  ask  you  to  transmit  to  the  German  Emperor  a 
message  from  the  President  which  is  as  follows : 

"I  have  given  most  earnest  thought  to  Your  Majesty's 
comments  on  the  suggestion  contained  in  Mr.  Boot's  letter 
of  February  19th,  but  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  feel  that  I 
ought  to  ask  France  to  make  further  concessions  than  the 
arrangement  suggested  in  that  letter  would  require.  This 
being  so,  I  would  gladly  drop  the  subject,  in  which  our  tra- 
ditional policy  of  abstention  from  the  political  affairs  of 
Europe  forbids  the  United  States  to  take  sides.  I  feel, 
however,  that  the  events  which  led  to  the  Conference  at 
Algeciras  forbid  me  to  omit  any  effort  within  my  power 
to  promote  a  settlement  of  differences. 

"By  the  request  of  Germany  I  urged  France  to  consent 
to  the  Conference,  giving  her  very  strong  assurances  of  my 
belief  that  a  decision  would  be  reached,  consonant  with  an 
impartial  view  of  what  is  most  fair  and  most  practical.  The 
nature,  the  strength  and  the  justification  of  these  assur- 
ances may  be  realized  by  referring  to  the  terms  of  Baron 
Sternburg's  letter  to  me  of  June  28,  1905,  which  said: 

* '  '  The  Emperor  has  requested  me  to  tell  you  that  in  case, 
during  the  coming  Conference,  differences  of  opinion 
should  arise  between  France  and  Germany,  he,  in  every 
case,  will  be  ready  to  back  up  the  decision  which  you  should 
consider  to  be  the  most  fair  and  the  most  practical. 

"  'In  doing  this,  he  wants  to  prove  that  the  assistance 


494  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

which  you  have  rendered  to  Germany  has  been  rendered  in 
the  interest  of  peace  alone,  and  without  any  selfish  motives.' 

"  Under  these  circumstances,  I  feel  bound  to  state  to 
Your  Majesty  that  I  think  the  arrangement  indicated  in 
the  above  mentioned  letter  of  February  19th  is  a  reasonable 
one,  and  most  earnestly  to  urge  Your  Majesty  to  accept  it. 
I  do  not  know  whether  France  would  accept  it  or  not.  I 
think  she  ought  to  do  so.  I  do  not  think  that  she  ought  to 
be  expected  to  go  further.  If  that  arrangement  is  made, 
the  Conference  will  have  resulted  in  an  abandonment  by 
France  of  her  claim  to  the  right  of  control  in  Morocco 
answerable  only  to  the  two  Powers  with  whom  she  had 
made  treaties  and  without  responsibility  to  the  rest  of  the 
world,  and  she  will  have  accepted  jointly  with  Spain  a  man- 
date from  all  the  Powers,  under  responsibility  to  all  of 
them  for  the  maintenance  of  equal  rights  and  opportunities. 
And  the  due  observance  of  these  obligations  will  be  safe- 
guarded by  having  vested  in  another  representative  of  all 
the  Powers  a  right  to  have  in  their  behalf  full  and  com- 
plete reports  of  the  performance  of  the  trust,  with  the 
further  right  of  verification  and  inspection. 

"I  feel  that  if  this  arrangement  be  made,  Germany  will 
have  accomplished  the  declared  object  for  her  intervention 
in  the  affairs  of  Morocco  and  for  the  Conference.  I  feel 
such  arrangement  would  be  in  very  fact  the  evidence  of  the 
triumph  of  German  diplomacy  in  this  matter.  Looking  at 
the  subject  as  I  do,  from  this  standpoint  of  an  observer 
friendly  to  both  parties  and  having  no  possible  interest  in 
the  result,  except  the  interest  of  peace,  I  see  grave  reasons 
to  apprehend  that  if  the  Conference  should  fail  because  of 
Germany's  insisting  upon  pressing  France  beyond  the 
measure  of  concession  described  in  this  proposed  arrange- 
ment, the  general  opinion  of  Europe  and  America  would 
be  unfavorable,  and  Germany  would  lose  that  increase  of 
credit  and  moral  power  that  the  making  of  this  arrange- 
ment would  secure  to  her,  and  might  be  held  responsible, 
probably  far  beyond  the  limits  of  reason,  for  all  the  evils 


SECRET  HISTORY  OP  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE     495 

that  may  come  in  the  train  of  a  disturbed  condition  of  af- 
fairs in  Europe. 

uAsa  rule,  parties  to  a  past  controversy,  looking  back, 
can  see  that  they  have  ascribed  undue  importance  to  mat- 
ters of  difference  which  were  really  unimportant.  A  dis- 
interested spectator  is  often  able  to  take  such  a  view  at  the 
time.  I  believe  that  I  am  taking  such  a  view;  that  if  the 
suggested  arrangement  can  be  made  none  of  the  matters 
which  Germany  will  not  have  secured  by  that  are  of  any 
real  importance  to  her,  and  I  most  sincerely  hope  that  Your 
Majesty  may  take  this  view  and  throw  upon  France  the 
responsibility  for  rejecting,  if  it  is  to  be  rejected,  the  sug- 
gested arrangement. ' ' 

Accept,  Excellency,  the  renewed  assurances  of  my  high- 
est consideration. 

Elihu  Boot 

His  Excellency, 

Baron  Speck  von  Sternburg, 
Etc.,  etc.,  etc. 


Imperial  German  Embassy, 

Washington,  D.  C, 

March  13,  1906. 
Mr.  President: 

The  Emperor's  answer  to  your  letter  transmitted  by  me 
on  the  7th  instant  is  as  follows : 
"Mr.  President: 

"I  thank  you  for  your  repeated  kind  endeavors  to  bring 
about  a  solution,  satisfactory  to  all  concerned,  of  the  Mo- 
rocco question.  I  highly  appreciate  it  that  notwithstand- 
ing all  difficulties  you  have  cooperated  in  solving  the  dif- 
ferences. As  to  the  information  of  my  ambassador,  men- 
tioned by  you,  I  can  only  assure  you,  Mr.  President,  that  I 
am  gladly  willing  to  take  your  advice  as  a  basis  of  an 
understanding.  In  this  sense  your  proposition  contained 
in  Mr.  Boot's  letter  of  the  19th  ultimo,  has  been  earnestly 
considered  at  once.    In  principle  I  consented  to  it,  provided 


496  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

that  it  be  given  a  form  to  meet  the  international  side  of  the 
question. 

"I  have  also  given  to  your  recent  statements  in  all  points 
my  fullest  attention  and  entirely  agree  with  you  that  a 
mandate  given  by  the  Conference  to  France  and  Spain  dif- 
fers in  a  judicial  sense  essentially  from  any  action  on  the 
part  of  France  based  solely  on  special  agreements  with 
England  and  Spain.  Such  a  mandate  would  give  to  France 
a  certain  monopoly  in  Morocco  which  would  prejudice  the 
economical  equality  of  the  other  nations,  if  no  sufficient 
international  counterpoise  were  created.  This  idea  has 
been  recognized  in  your  proposal  of  mediation,  and  doubt 
could  only  prevail  as  to  the  question  whether  the  regula- 
tions of  control,  proposed  by  you,  would  give  an  entirely 
sufficient  guarantee  from  an  international  point.  In  this 
respect  I  think  the  idea  has  been  developed  in  a  proposal 
of  mediation  brought  forward  by  Austria^Hungary.  This 
proposal  almost  covers  yours/  I  have  therefore  caused 
my  representatives  at  Algeciras  to  be  instructed  to  consent 
in  principle  to  the  proposition  of  Austria-Hungary,  and  I 
am  inclined  to  believe  that  a  satisfactory  end  of  the  Con- 
ference would  be  secured,  if  you,  Mr.  President,  would  like- 
wise give  your  consent  to  that  proposition,  which  seems  to 
me  to  be  an  acceptable  development  of  your  proposal. '  * 

(Signed )     Wiluam. 

The  Austrian  proposal  has  been  accepted  by  the  repre- 
sentatives of  all  other  powers,  including  Sir  E.  Nicholson, 
the  British  representative,  on  account  of  its  distinct  inter- 
national character,  as  a  basis  for  a  definite  understanding 
at  the  Conference.  As  this  basis  has  now  been  reached  it 
would  seem  a  pity  to  cause  further  postponement  by  a  new 
proposal.  The  support  of  Austria's  mediation  in  Algeciras 
and  Paris  would  in  the  eyes  of  the  Emperor  appear  as  the 
most  speedy  way  to  effect  a  solution  of  the  Morocco  ques- 
tion. 

I  may  add  that  on  March  11th  the  German  representa- 
tive at  Algeciras  was  informed  by  all  his  colleagues,  in- 
cluding the  British  and  American,  that  after  the  far  going 


SECRET  HISTORY  OF  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE      497 

concessions  made  by  Germany  during  the  sessions  of  last 
Saturday  the  French  opposition  could  not  be  justified.    In 
this  sense  they  have  spoken  to  Mr.  Revoil. 
I  have  the  honor  to  be,  Mr.  President, 

v  Yours  most  sincerely, 

Sternburg. 

(Received  from  German  Ambassador  March  14,  1906.) 

"  Giving  way  beyond  the  Austrian  proposals  would 
gravely  endanger  the  open  door.  The  opposition  lies  with 
the  mighty  French  banking  interests  which  are  aiming  at 
a  monopolization  of  the  resources  of  Morocco." 

No.  347. 

Department  op  State, 

Washington  March  17,  1906. 
Excellency: 

It  may  be  useful  for  me  to  re-state  in  writing  the  answer 
of  the  United  States,  already  given  to  you  orally,  to  the 
questions  which  you  have  asked  regarding  our  course  upon 
the  proposal  made  by  Austria  on  the  8th  instant  in  the 
Algeciras  Conference. 

We  do  not  approve  that  proposal.  We  regard  it  as  an 
essential  departure  from  the  principle  declared  by  Germany 
and  adhered  to  by  the  United  States,  that  all  commercial 
nations  are  entitled  to  have  the  door  of  equal  commercial 
opportunity  in  Morocco  kept  open,  and  the  corollary  to 
that  principle  that  no  one  power  ought  to  acquire  such  a 
control  over  the  territory  of  Morocco  as  to  justify  the  be- 
lief that  she  might  ultimately  come  to  regard  and  treat  that 
territory  as  her  own,  to  the  exclusion  of  others. 

This  view  of  international  right  was  interposed  against 
the  claim  of  France  to  organize  the  police  in  Moroccan 
ports  through  the  agency  of  her  officers  alone.  France  has 
yielded  to  this  view  of  international  right  to  the  extent  of 
offering  to  become,  jointly  with  Spain,  the  mandatory  of 
all  the  powers  for  the  purpose  of  at  once  maintaining  order 
and  preserving  equal  commercial  opportunities  for  all  of 


498  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

them.  It  was  further  proposed  that  an  officer  of  a  third 
power,  acting  in  behalf  of  all  the  powers,  should  have  the 
right  of  general  inspection  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  the 
powers  advised  whether  their  agents,  France  and  Spain, 
were  observing  the  limits  and  performing  the  duties  of  their 
agency.  This  arrangement  seemed  to  us  to  accomplish  the 
desired  purpose.  It  seemed  with  two  mandatories  jointly 
charged,  no  individual  claim  of  possession  or  control  was 
likely  to  grow  up ;  that,  with  the  constant  reminder  of  the 
general  right  involved  in  the  inspectorship,  the  duties  of 
the  agency  were  not  likely  to  be  forgotten  and  it  seemed 
that  the  proximity  of  France  and  Spain  to  Morocco,  and 
their  special  interest  in  having  order  maintained  in  that 
territory,  made  it  reasonable  that  they  should  be  selected 
as  the  mandatories  rather  than  any  other  powers. 

The  Austrian  proposal  offers  an  alternative  to  the  ar- 
rangement which  I  have  described.     It  is  that  the  eight 
Moroccan  ports  shall  be  distributed ;  that  in  four  the  police 
shall  be  organized  by  the  French ;  in  three  the  police  shall 
be  organized  by  the  Spanish ;  and  that  in  the  eighth  port 
the  police  shall  be  organized  by  the  Swiss  or  Dutch.    This 
seems  to  us  to  provide  for  a  potential  partition  of  the  ter- 
ritory in  violation  of  the  principle  upon  which  we  have 
agreed  with  Germany.    From  our  point  of  view  all  the  rea- 
sons which  existed  against  leaving  to  France  the  control 
of  all  the  ports  exists  against  leaving  to  France  the  control 
of  some,  to  Spain  the  control  of  some,  and  to  Switzerland, 
either  in  its  own  interest  or  in  the  interests  of  any  other 
powers,  the  control  of  one.    The  very  fact  of  division  of 
the  ports  implies  the  existence  of  a  special  right  on  the  part 
of  the  three  countries  in  the  ports  assigned  to  them  respec- 
tively.   The  immediate  effect  can  only  be  the  creation  of 
three  separate  spheres  of  influence,  with  inferior  right  and 
opportunity  on  the  part  of  all  other  powers.    And  the  na- 
tions to  whom  these  spheres  are  assigned  may  be  expected 
in  the  ordinary  course  of  events  to  enter  into  complete  con- 
trol.   We  do  not  care  whether  the  Inspector,  if  there  shall 
be  one,  is  Italian  or  Swiss.    We  do  not  care  whether  he 


SECRET  HISTORY  OF  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE     499 

reports  to  his  own  Government,  or  to  the  Corps  Diplo- 
matique in  Tangier,  or  communicates  the  information  he 
obtains  to  the  powers  in  any  other  way.  We  do  consider 
that  the  distribution  of  ports  to  separate  single  powers  is 
wrong  in  principle  and  destructive  of  the  declared  purpose 
of  both  Germany  and  the  United  States.  If  we  had  suffi- 
cient interest  in  Morocco  to  make  it  worth  our  while,  we 
should  seriously  object,  on  our  own  account,  to  the  adoption 
of  any  such  arrangement. 

We  have  not,  however,  any  such  substantial  interest  in 
Morocco  as  to  lead  us  to  take  that  course.  Our  chief  wish 
is  to  be  of  service  in  promoting  a  peaceable  settlement  of 
the  controversy  which  brought  the  Conference  together. 
Under  the  guidance  of  that  wish  we  shall  accept  whatever 
arrangement  the  European  powers,  represented  at  Alge- 
ciras,  agree  upon.  If  the  agreement  is  upon  the  Austrian 
proposal,  or  upon  any  modification  of  it  which  includes  the 
principle  of  distribution  of  ports,  we  shall  regret  what  we 
deem  to  be  the  failure  of  the  true  principle  to  which  we  have 
given  our  adherence.  We  still  hope  that  there  may  be  no 
such  result. 

Accept,  Excellency,  the  renewed  assurances  of  my  high- 
est consideration. 

Elihu  Root. 

His  Excellency, 

Baron  Speck  von  Sternburg, 
Etc.,  etc.,  etc. 

Hotel  Cambridge, 

New  York,  March  19,  1906. 
Dear  Mr.  President: 

I  have  the  honor  to  inform  you  of  the  contents  of  a  tele- 
gram, just  received,  which  is  the  answer  to  my  telegram, 
forwarded  after  the  conversation  I  had  with  you  on  the 
situation  at  Algeciras : 

Sincere  regret  is  expressed  that  the  attitude  of  Germany 
should  have  led  to  certain  misunderstandings.    The  Kaiser 


500  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

had  suggested  the  Conference  so  as  to  find  a  peaceful  way 
to  solve  the  question  of  Morocco. 

He  appreciates  the  fundamental  idea  of  your  proposal: 
cooperation  of  French  and  Spanish  officers  to  be  about 
equally  divided  in  each  of  the  ports. 

He  would  readily  join  in  any  proposal  at  the  Conference 
which  would  contain  this  mixed  system  and  an  inspector 
general,  to  which  France  already  has  agreed  in  principle. 

Germany  abstains  from  entering  into  details,  so  as  to 
prevent  that  these  should  obscure  the  main  points.  The 
telegram  concludes  in  saying  that  the  immediate  removal 
of  all  misunderstandings  is  far  more  important  to  Ger- 
many than  the  whole  Morocco  affair. 

Believe  me,  Mr.  President,  most 

Sincerely  yours, 

Sternburg. 

I  call  your  attention  to  the  last  paragraph  in  this  tele- 
gram of  March  19th.  I  had  previously  informed  Speck,  in 
a.  verbal  conversation,  that  if  the  Emperor  persevered  in 
rejecting  our  proposals  and  a  break-up  ensuefl,  I  should 
feel  obliged  to  publish  the  entire  correspondence,  and  that 
I  believed  that  our  people  would  feel  a  grave  suspicion  of 
Germany's  justice  and  good  faith;  but  that  if  the  Emperor 
would  yield  to  what  seemed  to  me  our  very  fair  proposals, 
I  should  not  publish  any  of  the  correspondence,  and  would 
endeavor  in  every  way  to  give  Germany  full  credit  for 
what  was  done ;  and  with  that  in  view  would  take  an  early 
opportunity  to  have  him  (Speck)  bring  a  delegation  of 
German  war  veterans  to  see  me,  so  that  I  might  make  a 
public  statement  in  praise  of  the  Emperor's  position  and 
expressive  of  my  appreciation  thereof,  and  of  my  hope  that 
the  relations  between  France  and  Germany  would  become 
steadily  more  friendly.  Two  or  three  days  after  the  Em- 
peror sent  his  cable  saying  he  had  yielded  to  our  request, 
Speck  called  upon  me  to  say  that  the  Emperor  very  earnest- 
ly desired  that  I  would  make  such  public  utterance.  Ac- 
cordingly I  arranged  for  him  to  bring  the  German  veterans 


SECRET  HISTORY  OF  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE      501 

around,  and  I  made  them  (April  12,  1906)  the  following 
speech,  which  I  had  previously  gone  over  not  only  with 
Speck  but  with  Jusserand : 

"I  welcome  you  here,  my  f ellow- Americans ;  for  among 
the  many  strains  that  go  to  make  up  our  composite  race 
stock  in  this  country,  no  strain  has  given  us  better  Ameri- 
cans than  those  who  are  of  German  birth  or  blood.  It  is 
our  peculiar  pride  as  a  nation  that  in  this  republic  we  have 
measurably  realized  the  ideal  under  which  good  citizens 
know  no  discrimination  as  between  creed  and  creed,  birth- 
place and  birthplace,  provided  only  that  whatever  the  man's 
parentage  may  have  been,  whatever  the  way  in  which  he 
worships  his  Creator,  he  strives  in  good  faith  to  do  his  duty 
by  himself  and  by  his  fellow-men,  and  to  show  his  unflinch- 
ing loyalty  to  our  common  country.  In  addition  to  thus 
greeting  you,  my  fellow- Americans  of  German  birth,  I  wish 
also  to  greet  the  German  citizens  present,  the  members  of 
the  German  army,  belonging  to  the  reserve  of  that  army, 
and  to  welcome  them  here,  especially,  Mr.  Ambassador,  as 
they  are  brought  here,  by  you,  yourself  an  old  soldier,  who 
have  endeared  yourself  to  the  American  people  by  your 
hearty  friendship  for  this  country. 

"The  reverence  a  man  preserves  for  his  native  land,  so 
far  from  standing  in  the  way  of  his  loving  and  doing  his 
full  duty  by  the  land  of  his  adoption,  should  help  him 
toward  this  love  and  the  performance  of  this  duty.  If  a 
man  is  a  good  son  he  is  apt  to  make  a  good  husband;  and 
the  quality  that  makes  a  man  reverence  the  country  of  his 
birth  is  apt  to  be  the  quality  that  makes  him  a  good  citizen 
in  the  country  of  his  adoption. 

"The  ties  that  unite  Germany  and  the  United  States  are 
many  and  close,  and  it  must  be  a  prime  object  of  our  states- 
manship to  knit  the  two  nations  ever  closer  together.  In 
no  country  is  there  a  warmer  admiration  for  Germany  and 
for  Germany's  exalted  ruler,  Emperor  William,  than  here 
in  America. 

"  It  is  not  out  of  place  in  closing  for  me  to  say  a  word  of 
congratulation  both  to  the  German  people  and  the  German 


502  THEODORE  EOOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

Emperor  upon  the  work  that  has  been  accomplished  in  the 
Algeciras  Conference  which  has  just  closed,  a  Conference 
held  chiefly  because  of  the  initiative  of  Germany.  It  was 
not  a  Conference  in  which  we  Americans  as  a  nation  had 
much  concern,  save  that  it  is  always  our  concern  to  see  jus- 
tice obtain  everywhere,  and,  so  far  as  we  properly  can,  to 
work  for  the  cause  of  international  peace  and  good  wilL 
In  its  outcome  this  Conference  has  added  to  the  likelihood 
of  the  betterment  of  conditions  in  Morocco  itself,  has  se- 
cured equitable  dealing  as  among  the  foreign  powers  who 
have  commercial  relations  with  Morocco,  and  has  dimin- 
ished the  chance  of  friction  between  these  powers.  In  par- 
ticular it  may  not  be  out  of  place  for  me  to  say  that  I  hope 
and  believe  that  the  Conference  has  resulted  and  will  result' 
in  rendering  continually  more  friendly  the  relations  be- 
tween the  mighty  empire  of  Germany  and  the  mighty  re- 
public of  France ;  for  it  is  my  hope  and  wish,  as  it  must  be 
the  hope  and  wish  of  every  sincere  wellwisher  of  human- 
kind, that  these  friendly  relations  may  not  only  continue 
unbroken  but  may  ever  grow  in  strength.' ' 

I  have  since  received  from  Jusserand  and  Speck,  both, 
the  very  cordial  thanks  of  the  French  and  German  Govern- 
ments. McCormick  (American  Ambassador  to  France) 
has  just  sent  a  note  running  as  follows: 

"I  have  the  honor  to  inform  you  that  the  Minister  for 
Foreign  Affairs  referred  immediately  on  my  entering  his 
room,  at  his  diplomatic  reception  on  Wednesday,  to  the 
cablegram  which  he  had  sent  to  M.  Jusserand  instructing 
the  latter  to  express  the  high  appreciation  of  the  French 
Government  of  the  signal  aid  rendered  by  President  Roose- 
velt in  arriving  at  a  just  solution  of  the  differences  between 
France  and  Germany  with  reference  to  Morocco — 'Ni  vain- 
queur  ni  vaincu.'  " 

There,  this  is  a  hideously  long  communication!  I  shall 
send  a  copy  of  it  both  to  Meyer  and  to  White,  and  shall 
show  it  to  Root,  but  to  no  one  else. 


SECRET  HISTORY  OF  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE     503 

None  of  the  documents  are  to  be  published  in  the  Blue 
Book ;  and  I  need  hardly  say  that  it  is  to  be  considered  as 
of  the  most  strictly  confidential  character. 

(Signed)       Theodore  Roosevelt. 

The  Convention  assembled  at  Algeciras,  Spain,  on  Jan- 
uary 16, 1906,  and  a  treaty  was  signed  on  April  6th,  follow- 
ing. The  American  delegates  were  Henry  White,  then  Am- 
bassador to  Italy,  and  Mr.  S.  R.  Gummere,  Consul-General 
at  Morocco.  The  President  had  requested  Joseph  H. 
Choate  to  be  a  delegate  and  he  had  accepted,  but  he  later 
recalled  his  acceptance.  The  treaty  was  ratified  by  the 
U.  S.  Senate  on  December  12,  1906,  with  an  additional 
protocol  declining  to  assume  any  responsibility  for  the  en- 
forcement of  the  provisions  of  the  act.  In  his  message  to 
Congress,  on  December  3,  1906,  the  President  gave  this 
statement  of  the  treaty's  effect: 

"The  Algeciras  Convention,  which  was  signed  by  the 
United  States,  as  well  as  by  most  of  the  powers  of  Europe, 
supersedes  the  previous  convention  of  1880,  which  was 
also  signed  both  by  the  United  States  and  a  majority  of  the 
European  powers.  This  treaty  confers  upon  us  equal  com- 
mercial rights  with  all  European  countries  and  does  not 
entail  a  single  obligation  of  any  kind  upon  us,  and  I 
earnestly  hope  it  may  be  speedily  ratified.  To  refuse  to 
ratify  it  would  merely  mean  that  we  forfeited  our  commer- 
cial rights  in  Morocco  and  would  not  achieve  another  ob- 
ject of  any  kind.  In  the  event  of  such  refusal  we  would 
be  left  for  the  first  time  in  a  hundred  and  twenty  years 
without  any  commercial  treaty  with  Morocco;  and  this  at 
a  time  when  we  are  everywhere  seeking  new  markets  and 
outlets  for  trade.' ' 

In  recognition  of  Ambassador  Jusserand's  services  in  the 
affair  President  Roosevelt  wrote  to  him  on  April  25,  1906 : 

My  dear  Mr.  Ambassador: 

During  the  past  year  our  relations  have  been  those  of 
peculiar  intimacy  in  dealing  with  more  than  one  problem, 


504  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  AND  HIS  TIME 

and  particularly  in  connection  with  the  Morocco  conference, 
and  there  are  certain  things  which  I  think  I  ought  to  say 

to  you. 

It  is  the  simple  and  literal  truth  to  say  that  in  my  judg- 
ment we  owe  it  to  you  more  than  to  any  other  one  man  that 
the  year  which  has  closed  has  not  seen  a  war  between 
France  and  Germany,  which,  had  it  begun,  would  probably 
have  extended  to  take  in  a  considerable  portion  of  the  world. 
In  last  May  and  June  the  relations  between  the  two  coun- 
tries were  so  strained  that  such  a  war  was  imminent.  Prob- 
ably the  only  way  it  could  have  been  avoided  was  by  an  in- 
ternational conference,  and  such  a  conference  could  only 
have  been  held  on  terms  compatible  with  France's  honor 
and  dignity.  You  were  the  man  most  instrumental  in  hav- 
ing just  this  kind  of  conference  arranged  for.  I  came  into 
the  matter  at  all  most  unwillingly,  and  I  could  not  have 
come  into  it  at  all  if  I  had  not  possessed  entire  confidence 
alike  in  your  unfailing  soundness  of  judgment  and  in  your 
high  integrity  of  personal  conduct.  Thanks  to  the  fact  that 
these  are  the  two  dominant  notes  in  your  personality,  my 
relationship  with  you  has  been  such  as  I  think  has  very, 
very  rarely  obtained  between  an  ambassador  at  any  time 
and  the  head  of  the  government  to  which  that  ambassador 
was  accredited;  and  certainly  no  ambassador  and  head  of 
a  government  could  ever  stand  to  one  another  on  a  footing 
at  once  more  pleasant  and  more  advantageous  to  their  re- 
spective countries  than  has  been  the  case  with  you  and  me. 
If,  in  these  delicate  Morocco  negotiations  I  had  not  been 
able  to  treat  you  with  the  absolute  frankness  and  confi- 
dence that  I  did,  no  good  result  could  possibly  have  been 
obtained,  and  this  frankness  and  confidence  were  rendered 
possible  only  because  of  the  certainty  that  you  would  do  and 
advise  what  was  wisest  to  be  done  and  advised,  and  that 
you  would  treat  all  that  was  said  and  done  between  us  two 
as  a  gentleman  of  the  highest  honor  treats  what  is  said 
and  done  in  the  intimate  personal  relations  of  life.  If  you 
had  been  capable  of  adopting  one  line  of  conduct  as  a  pri- 
vate individual  and  another  as  a  public  man,  I  should  have 


SECRET  HISTORY  OP  ALGECIRAS  CONFERENCE     505 

been  wholly  unable  to  assume  any  such  relations  with  you ; 
nor,  on  the  other  hand,  however  high  your  standard  of 
honor,  could  I  have  assumed  them  had  I  not  felt  complete 
confidence  in  the  soundness  and  quickness  of  your  judg- 
ment. The  service  you  rendered  was  primarily  one  to 
France,  but  it  was  also  a  service  to  the  world  at  large ;  and 
in  rendering  it  you  bore  yourself  as  the  ideal  public  ser- 
vant should  bear  himself ;  for  such  a  public  servant  should 
with  trained  intelligence  know  how  to  render  the  most  ef- 
fective service  to  his  own  country  while  yet  never  devi- 
ating by  so  much  as  a  hand's  breadth  from  the  code  of 
mutual  good  faith  and  scrupulous  regard  for  the  rights 
of  others,  which  should  obtain  between  nations  no  less  than 
between  gentlemen.  I  do  not  suppose*  that  you  will  ever 
gain  any  personal  advantage,  and  perhaps  not  even  any 
personal  recognition,  because  of  what  you' have  done  in  the 
past  year,  but  I  desire  that  you  should  at  least  know  my 
appreciation  of  it. 


A.    xISE 


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